


Dangerous Game

by changenotcoins



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternative Universe - FBI, Angst, Attempted Murder, Blood and Violence, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Murder, Murder Mystery, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut, Suspense, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:48:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 68,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29340084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/changenotcoins/pseuds/changenotcoins
Summary: Ben Wyatt has been hunting a serial killer for months and is no closer to catching the killer than when he started. When Leslie Knope is the only witness to a new murder, Ben not only has to pursue a new lead, but protect his only witness too. Will he find the killer, and love too?
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 98
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to mouseratstan for their help with the title! I simply couldn't do it without you!
> 
> A warning: This story is going to contain murder, violence and potential graphic sexual scenes. One such scene is already referenced in the first chapter. I have it listed in the warnings and tags, but just wanted to add an extra warning to the notes here. Please be advised if you choose to read this fic. Thank you and enjoy!

The back door of City Hall opened, and Leslie Knope slipped out of the building unnoticed by people that had congregated there. Her blue eyes glanced around, as if hoping someone would light up by the sight of her, recognize her, tell her how marvelous she had been tonight during their town hall meeting. But everyone was either chatting about their latest gripe with the city or had their gazes fixed on the door, hoping the mayor or Joan Callamezzo or Brandi Maxxxx would appear soon, ready to dazzle them again before the evening was over. Because _that’s_ who they really cared about.

Leslie might as well have been invisible. She was only a lowly government employee in a town that didn’t appreciate her, after all.

It wasn’t often that Leslie was bitter about the fact that she didn’t have a more important role. She had worked hard to get to where she was, and she was grateful to have a job that paid the bills while allowing her to do what she loved at the same time. But her thirtieth birthday had been the previous week, and she was starting to wonder whether she was a little too old to keep waiting for something _bigger_. Did dreams have expiration dates? Was there a point where all you had left was to settle or give up?

And what would she do if she gave up? Leslie’s whole life had always revolved around being in government, in politics, in a role where she could serve her city. She didn’t know what else she could possibly do.

She was about to turn around the corner, when she heard the crowd gathered at the door cheering and applauding. Brandi and Joan must have come out. She didn’t look over her shoulder to check if she was right. She didn’t need to. She knew what it sounded like when a star showed up.

Leslie walked down the city street, her hands jammed deep into her coat pockets, with a slight frown on her face. She knew she had talent. She knew she was good at her job and she knew she had potential. Everyone knew she had enough drive to get what she wanted. Yet, for some reason, the big role that could give her everything she had ever dreamed of was elusive, always out of reach. She couldn’t understand what she was doing wrong…

“Hey, Leslie! Where are you going?”

The voice startled her, making her stop and almost collide with a family walking behind her. Leslie blinked in confusion before she recognized her best friend, standing at the entrance of JJ’s Diner where they had agreed to meet after Leslie’s town hall meeting. She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had missed Ann completely, something that was quite difficult to accomplish, considering Ann was the most beautiful woman Leslie had ever met and everyone noticed her.

Leslie reached her and was immediately enveloped in a bear hug. Ann was always generous in her affections, and Leslie smiled against her shoulder as she accepted it. “Sorry, I guess I was distracted.”

Ann released her and then guided her inside, towards their favorite table. They sat across each other and Ann’s eyes settled on her. “Are you okay?”

Straight to the point. Leslie loved that about her best friend. She shrugged and started playing with the salt shaker. “I guess. I’m just being stupid.”

“I’m sure you’re not. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Ann leaned over the table, all her attention on Leslie, and she felt a rush of affection all throughout her.

Before she could say a word, though, the waitress arrived at their table to take their orders. Ann glanced at the menu quickly, trying to decide, but Leslie looked up at her and said: “I’d like all the waffles you can fit on this table, with three cans of whipped cream. I’ll need them all. It’s been a day.”

Ann arched an eyebrow, said she wanted oatmeal, and waited for the waitress to be gone before she turned back to Leslie. “So, something’s definitely wrong. That’s a lot of waffles.”

Leslie groaned and let her head fall on her arms on top of the table. “Do you think I’m wasting my time with all of this?”

“I thought you loved your job,” Ann commented. “What’s changed?”

Leslie peeked at her though her fingers. “I do. I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere. I’m just in the Parks Department in my small town, a town that doesn’t even care that I _try_ my hardest for them.”

“I thought you said they’d come around - ”

“… and I’m not exactly young anymore, am I?” Leslie continued, ignoring Ann’s words. “I’m thirty. I’m already too old for this job, and I should have been further along by now.”

“You’re not old, that’s ridiculous,” Ann interjected, rolling her eyes. “You don’t look a day older than twenty-five and you know it.”

The waitress left the food on the table between them, forcing Leslie to sit up. She sighed as she grabbed a can of whipped cream and popped it into her mouth.

“Are you sure work’s all that’s bothering you?” Ann asked, watching her closely. “I know it’s not exactly what you wanted, but at least you’re working in government, right? You used to say that was all you needed to be happy.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” Leslie replied quietly, staring at her food as if it had all the answers. Ann seemed a little lost, unused to see Leslie so crestfallen, so Leslie decided to change the subject. “Anyway, how are you? Any crazy nurse stories you have to tell me?”

Ann couldn’t find anything to say. She didn’t know what it was like to be in Leslie’s shoes. Leslie had had to fight for everything so hard all her life, and Ann, though she had her own battles too, had achieved everything she had ever wanted.

They chatted amicably for the rest of the meal, and then stayed silent as they waited for the check. They tried to get together for a meal at least once a week, more often if they could get away with it. 

They stepped out of the restaurant and back into the ever busy Pawnee street. Leslie was about to say goodbye when Ann clasped a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“Look, I don’t know if what you’re going through now is some kind of insanely early midlife crisis, but if you’re not happy… then find something that makes you happy, Les,” Ann said, smiling in that quirked way that was so loveable. “Life’s too short to be stuck in a job you’re not enjoying. If it makes you miserable - ”

“It doesn’t make me miserable, per se…” Leslie muttered tiredly. “I just thought I would have gotten farther than I have by now. But it seems that this is just where I am meant to be.”

“Then why don’t you pursue something else?” Ann said with a shrug, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. 

Leslie’s heart seemed to pound against her ribcage. It always did when she thought of her future. But she shook her head. “I’m not ready for that.”

“Leslie, if there’s anything I know for sure, it’s that you can be whatever the hell you want to be. No one can stop you,” Ann answered, squeezing her shoulder one more time. “Just think about it.”

As Leslie watched her best friend walk down the street, she thought that she may not have found the job of her dreams yet, but she had certainly lucked out in the best friend department.

She turned around and headed in the opposite direction, towards her house. Everything Ann had said seemed to keep her company on the walk home, echoing in her head as she tried to make sense of it. Could she really put herself out there and do something different? Was she good enough for that? She had always been an ambitious person, but this was about more than being ambitious. This could change her life, in more ways than one. Was she ready for that?

Leslie felt a tickle of excitement. Was she really considering this? She didn’t even know where to start.

Her neighborhood was calm, the sidewalks pretty much deserted. It was a quiet Wednesday evening, and most people were home. Leslie was eager to get home too. She wanted a shower, maybe a glass of wine before bed, and some quiet so she could think.

She was only two blocks from her house when she heard a choking sound, followed by a louder noise, like something heavy was dropped. Leslie frowned and looked around, and thought she saw a shadow moving in an alley just a few feet away.

Leslie had lived here her entire life. She knew that nothing good could be happening in an alley in the dark. She knew that what she had to do was keep walking, get to her house, and forget about it. She knew it could be a mugging, a drug addict, someone taking the trash out. She just knew it was none of her business.

She fished her cellphone out of her pocket, tapped it to have some light, and peeked into the alley.

The first thing she saw was a pile of clothes thrown carelessly on the floor. That was almost enough to make her turn around – it wasn’t usual to find prostitutes in this neighborhood, but if that’s what this was, she didn’t want to walk into her doing her business. When she saw a pale, female foot just a few inches away from the clothes, she assumed she was right. But when she discovered the blood stains on the floor around the woman’s body, she realized she had just seen something a lot worse than someone having sex for money.

The still woman on the dirty floor was completely naked, her blonde hair fanned out around her head. Her bright blue eyes were staring up at the sky, incapable of seeing anything anymore. Her lips were slightly parted, like she had just exhaled a breath. But the most horrifying thing was on her bare stomach – someone had cut a rough heart shape into her milky skin, and blood poured down her sides in a steady flow.

Leslie’s legs seemed to give up underneath her, but she managed to catch herself with a hand against the wall. She gasped, horrified, only to find out she wasn’t the only person standing in the alleyway. The light coming from her cellphone fell on someone looking down at the woman’s lifeless body.

The man turned his head and looked at Leslie, who was staring back at him with wide, petrified eyes. Leslie couldn’t breathe, and somewhere in her numb state of sheer horror, she remembered some articles she had seen in the Indianapolis Star, that she had scanned vaguely while having her morning coffee, about the women who had appeared dead, naked, with heart shapes carved into their skin like a morbid signature in a twisted piece of art.

Her stomach churned as she realized she had to get the hell away from there _right now_.

The man’s head quirked to the side as he regarded Leslie with interest. There was something manic and unpleasant about him, and Leslie couldn’t look away. When she tried to, her gaze shifted down, and she realized the man was aroused – aroused by the crime he had just committed, aroused by a dead girl’s body.

Leslie had never felt so sick in her life.

“Hello,” the man said in a low voice, as his lips stretched into a little smile. He was holding a knife, and Leslie took a deep breath to keep herself from passing out at the sight of it.

Leslie’s eyes shifted again towards the girl’s body, as if she expected her to get up and start running.

“Isn’t she pretty?” The man asked, with a sigh. “I think she’s a model.”

Leslie was shaking all over. She was mentally screaming at her legs to move, to get her out of there, but she was paralyzed. This couldn’t be real. This kind of thing didn’t happen in real life, not in _her_ real life. Maybe she was dreaming. She would wake up from this nightmare.

_Oh._

_Oh, fuck._

_Please wake up, Leslie._

“You look like a model too,” the man murmured thoughtfully, stepping closer. Leslie could feel his breath against her skin now. The man’s eyes were slimy green, bloodshot and glossed over, entranced by her. 

A potential victim. 

“I really like your pretty blonde hair and blue eyes…”

Leslie had felt trapped and scared a million times before. When she was a teenager, she had been terrorized by assholes who thought they were better than her, who thought they could take advantage of her. She had been pushed, insulted, attacked for who she was. But she had never felt as scared as she felt now – this wasn’t a stupid peer of hers who projected their insecurities on Leslie. This was a maniac with a knife, who had just killed a person.

Despite knowing it was crazy, Leslie couldn’t shut down her survival instincts. She had learned to fight back so long ago that she couldn’t just stay there and let this insane person hurt her. She felt her body vibrate as it came back from the shock. Her legs were now steady under her. She had to get out of there.

She pushed the man and turned to run back onto the sidewalk and towards her house. But the man was faster than she was, and he grabbed onto Leslie’s arm, pulling her back into the alley, pushing her farther inside. Leslie almost tripped over the dead girl’s leg, and forced herself not to look down at her.

The man was now standing right in the alley’s entrance, blocking Leslie. Leslie swallowed nervously and looked around. There wasn’t much there that could help her – a couple of dumpsters, a few garbage bags, nothing that would be useful to defend herself.

With a sickening smile, the man started approaching again. He knew Leslie was trapped. “Don’t be scared. There’s nothing to be scared of…”

Leslie’s back hit the alley wall. Her free hand started feeling around for something, anything that could help her. “Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”

The man extended a hand towards Leslie just as her fingers closed around something. She didn’t know it was a bottle until she smashed it on the man’s head and watched the glass break on his skull with a crunch. But she didn’t stop to think – as soon as the man was doubled over, moaning in pain – Leslie ran.

By the time she had one foot out of the alley, she was already dialing 911. Her hands were shaking but she still managed it on the first try, doing her best not to listen to what the man was screaming at her in the dark. She heard the footsteps behind her that told her she was being followed. Leslie knew she wouldn’t make it home before the man caught her. She needed to try. She needed–

There was a phone booth at the end of the street. She knew it wasn’t the best place to hide, but it was her only option for now. She slipped inside and locked the door, breathing heavily. She could see the man now, just a few steps away. He was smiling. He thought he had Leslie now.

There was another voice in her ear, and it took a moment for Leslie to realize there was a 911 operator talking to her. She sobbed and looked away from the man, knowing there was nowhere to hide. If the door gave in or the glass walls were broken, it would be the end.

“Please,” Leslie cried desperately, gripping the phone so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Please, I need help.”

\-------------------

It was just a few minutes after midnight when Ben Wyatt slipped the key into his door and stepped inside his apartment in Indianapolis. It was the earliest he had been home in weeks. Things were always hectic at the office, and it was so easy to get sucked into the vortex of cases and paperwork.

He slipped out of his shoes and undid the knot of his tie simultaneously. His grey suit had been pristine when he put it on that morning. Now it was wrinkled, with a stain of coffee on one of the sleeves. Ben had always been a very neat person who took care of his clothes and tried to look his best at all times. Now, it was difficult to look his best when he spent almost sixteen hours a day at work.

His hair had already slipped free from the gel he had put on that morning. He ran his fingers through it, loosening it, as he walked towards the kitchen. He looked into the fridge, hoping for something to eat. There was only a bowl of leftover spaghetti from three nights ago and something he had bought at the deli last week that looked quite dubious. He hadn’t been grocery shopping in weeks, and he usually lived on take-out. Ben sighed and settled by grabbing a bottle of beer and walking barefoot towards the living room.

Most people, when they were at home, felt at ease. They relaxed, had a meal with their families, shared stories about their days, and went to sleep in the arms of the person they loved. Ben dreaded his time at home – it was tainted with loneliness and too much silence. Maybe that was why he was always at the office, letting the bureau become his life. At least when he was working on a case, he had a purpose and something to keep him busy.

He uncapped his bottle and took a long sip, as he flipped through the channels on the television. He let a mindless sitcom play in the background while his mind wandered back to the case that was consuming his life. Ben had been an FBI agent for almost six years, but nothing had ever felt as challenging or life threatening as his current case. A sicko went around Indiana killing women, stripping their clothes off and cutting heart shapes into their skin. There were eleven victims, and they still had no idea how to trap him. They never knew where or when he was going to strike next, and the guy seemed clever enough to leave absolutely no clues in the murder scenes.

It was driving Ben crazy.

He let his head drop to the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. This was why he didn’t like going home – he couldn’t turn off his brain, even if he tried. At least if he stayed at work, he didn’t feel like he was wasting his time.

His gaze shifted to a portrait resting atop one of his bookshelves. It was of him and his family when he was a kid, during a camping trip. Both he and his brother and his sister had pestered their parents to take them camping, until they finally caved and agreed. Their mother had hated every second of it, but their father had been relaxed and happy from the moment they arrived at the campsite. He gladly sat by the lake and taught Ben how to fish, showing him how to put the bait on the hook very carefully so he wouldn’t prick his little fingers. At night, he and Henry and Stephanie would put marshmallows on sticks and toast them on the fire, while their mother sang quietly under her breath to keep them entertained.

That had been one of the happiest times of Ben’s life.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he had pushed the memory away from his thoughts. He tried focusing on whatever was on television, even though he knew it would be better to just go to sleep.

Ben ran his thumb over the rim of the bottle. He was restless, as usual. There were several minor cases that needed his attention, but there was always one that would push itself to the forefront. It was the first time in Ben’s career that he couldn’t solve a case in just a couple of months, tops. All the others had always screwed up at some point – they would find a hair, or a drop of blood, or a cigarette butt that would give them the DNA they needed to find the criminal, or they would find a surveillance video that would lead them to close the case. But this time… there wasn’t a single clue. It was like a puzzle where no pieces matched.

Ben had never really liked puzzles.

He was about to give up and just go to bed when his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen and found it was his partner.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asked distractedly, already standing up and taking his bottle with him to the bedroom.

“Are you home already?” April asked without preambles.

Ben put the bottle on the nightstand and rummaged through his dresser without bothering to turn on the light. He found some soft cotton pants and an old t-shirt and pulled them out to sleep in. “Yeah, just got here a few minutes ago. Why?”

“You have to get back here, Wyatt,” April said, and then Ben noticed something in her voice, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

Ben frowned. “Why? What happened?”

“It happened again. He killed a girl in an alley in Pawnee.”

Ben exhaled slowly and dropped down on the bed, as his whole body tensed with the news. “Fuck. Send me the address. I’ll be there soon.”

“No, you have to come to the office,” April replied and she sounded… excited?

“What? Why? I need to see the crime scene so I can - ”

“Ben,” April interrupted impatiently. “You have to come to the office.”

Ben gripped the edge of the bed in anticipation. “Wait. Did you guys find anything?”

“No. Some guys are at the scene already, but they say everything looks the same as in all the others. There are no clues.”

“Then why - ” Ben began saying, but April cut him off.

“Ben, there’s a witness.” April stopped for a few seconds, letting the information sink in. “We have a fucking witness.”

Ben stood up and left his room, quickly walking towards the front door. He gathered his shoes and put them back on hastily. They had never been able to find a witness before.

He slipped back into his jacket and ended the call. Ben left his apartment, walking down the front steps two at a time. His street was as calm and silent as Indiana could ever be, but Ben was thrumming inside. 

This could change everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Leslie rubbed a hand down her face, steeling herself. She had been in this office for _hours_ , and the fluorescent white light was hurting her eyes. She just wanted to go home. Maybe if she went home, crawled into her bed and went to sleep, she could pretend that nothing had happened. That she hadn’t just witnessed a murder, that she hadn’t just been inches away from becoming a victim herself. 

_This is not happening. I can still wake up. For the love of everything, Knope, just wake up._

She looked up when she heard the sound of footsteps. One of the agents she had seen before entered the office. She was rather short, with long brunette hair held back with a navy blue headband. She was smiling gently at Leslie in a way that was meant to be comforting, but it certainly didn’t come off that way. Leslie had had _enough_ with this day, and the only comfort she could think of was the moment she would be allowed to get the hell away from here.

“Ms. Knope - ” The woman began, but Leslie interjected.

“Look, I’m sorry. But will someone please tell me when I can go home? No one’s told me anything since they brought me here. I just want to go home.” Leslie pleaded.

The agent’s dark eyes filled with sympathy. “Soon, I’m sure. We just need to ask you a few more questions, and - ”

“More questions?” Leslie got up from her chair, feeling restless. “I’ve already spoken to three different agents. I’ve told you everything.”

“We understand that,” the agent said patiently. “But it’ll only take a few minutes.”

Leslie stared out of the window at the beautiful night sky of Pawnee. The city was always alive and luminous, even in the middle of the night. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass and closed her eyes for a moment. Just a bit longer – she could resist for just a little bit longer. And as soon as she woke up the next day, she could pretend this had never happened.

_This is what happens when you think you need more excitement in your life. I’ll never complain about being in the Parks and Recreation Department again._

She thought of the girl lying naked on the filthy alley floor. She had to take a deep breath to stop herself from throwing up. She would never be able to pretend that it didn’t happen. She knew it would be burned into her brain, etched into her deepest, darkest memories for the rest of her life.

She went back to her seat with her legs feeling weak and hid her face behind her hands.

Leslie heard new footsteps but didn’t look up, focusing instead on inhaling and exhaling slowly. There was a soft sound and when she finally put her hands down and opened her eyes, she found a cup of coffee in front of her steam billowing up from the top. She instinctively wrapped her fingers around the hot ceramic mug, white with the FBI logo on it, and then glanced up at the man who had brought it to her.

She hadn’t seen this agent before in the hours she had been sitting in this dull office. The man had dark brown hair that he had obviously tried to tame with some product, combed over and parted and held down with gel. His brown eyes looked tired but alert and focused. His grey suit and white shirt were wrinkled, and the black tie hanging around his neck was a little loose. Despite how serious he looked and the circumstances surrounding their meeting, Leslie couldn’t help but think that he was attractive. If she hadn’t been so exhausted and traumatized, Leslie would have felt flustered under this stranger’s intense gaze.

“Ms. Knope, I’m Agent Wyatt,” the man said. He put an official looking folder on the table and offered his hand to Leslie. Leslie shook it and noticed how firm his handshake was, and how rough the skin of his palm was to the touch. “I’m sorry we had to keep you here for so long, but as you probably know, this is a very delicate situation.”

“You mean the fact that a girl was murdered two blocks away from my house? And then some crazy man tried to knock down a phone booth to get to me as well? Yes, I definitely understand how delicate this is. But I’m sure you and the other three agents I talked to also understand that it was a pretty difficult night and I would very much like to go home,” Leslie retorted quite abruptly, feeling her voice go higher and higher in pitch the longer she talked.

So, this is what going into hysterics feels like, she thought, as her heart pounded against her ribcage.

She took a sip of coffee hoping it would help her calm down, but she almost spit it out immediately. It had to be the worst coffee she had ever tasted.

“Sorry about that,” Agent Wyatt said sincerely. “I always forget I only drink that because I’m used to it.”

“Wow,” Leslie scrunched her face, willing her taste buds back to normal. “So, all those FBI television shows were actually right about the awful coffee. This is _disgusting_.”

“Unfortunately,” Agent Wyatt quirked a smile, and took a seat in front of Leslie. His face returned to its original seriousness and Leslie put the cup down. “Ms. Knope, I know you have already been through a lot tonight. But I was hoping you could tell me about what happened in detail.”

Leslie ran her fingers through her hair in frustration and sighed heavily. She was exhausted and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it again. But she realized that the sooner she told Agent Wyatt about it, the sooner she would be on her way home. 

She began talking, making sure not to spare any detail. Wyatt listened intently; he never interrupted her, looking straight at Leslie, hanging on her every word. The other agents she had spoken to had only made her more nervous, but there was something soothing about how Wyatt was solely focused on her.

“Once I called 911, I wasn’t sure what to do. All I knew was that I needed the door to hold up until the cops were there,” Leslie said quietly. She could still hear the man’s shouts and the violent pounding of her heart as she waited – either for the police to get there or for the man to make it through. She had never been so scared in her life. “As soon as he heard the sirens, he left. By the time the police helped me out of the phone booth, he was nowhere to be seen.”

Agent Wyatt nodded for a second, processing what Leslie had said. Then he opened the folder he had brought with him. He extracted a sheet of paper and extended it to Leslie. “Based on the description you gave to one of our agents earlier tonight, we were able to put together this sketch. Is this the man you saw tonight?”

Leslie studied the drawing, her eyes moving quickly over it. She tried not to get sick for the millionth time that night. The image was strikingly familiar, even though she hoped she had never seen that face before. “Yes. Yes, this is him.”

It was the same shaggy blonde hair, broad forehead and thin lips. His square jaw and sharp cheekbones framed his face, making it look stony. But what made Leslie’s skin crawl was his eyes – that slimy green that made her feel dirty and violated.

She put the drawing back on the table, face down. She didn’t want to look at it anymore.

Agent Wyatt put it back in the folder. “We’re looking for him in our database, and we’ll have his picture out in the newspapers and all over the internet tomorrow. We’re going to find him, thanks to you.”

Leslie nodded. The image of the dead girl assaulted her brain again, so clear in her memory that she knew she would never be able to forget it. “That poor girl… I wish I could have… if I had arrived five minutes earlier…”

“You wouldn’t have been able to prevent it,” Agent Wyatt said kindly. “This person is insane and there’s no way to know what he would have done if you had caught him before he got to her. Don’t blame yourself.”

Leslie smiled sadly at him but didn’t say anything. It was difficult to avoid wondering what if.

Agent Wyatt gave her a moment while he rummaged through the folder. “Do you have any family in town, Ms. Knope?”

Leslie frowned, not sure what that had to do with anything. “Yes. My best friend is here in Indiana.”

“Do you live on your own?” Wyatt asked, lifting his gaze back towards her.

“I… yes. Why?”

“I think it would be best for you to stay with her tonight, if it’s possible,” Agent Wyatt said. “I imagine it must have been a rough night for you.”

Leslie wanted to protest and say she was perfectly okay. But the idea of slipping into her dark home at four in the morning made her feel slightly on edge. “Sure. She won’t mind.”

“Perfect,” Agent Wyatt stood and Leslie did the same, hoping this meant it was time for her to leave. “Agent Traeger will take you there, and he’ll stay outside the house tonight. We’ll send another agent to relieve him in the morning and escort you to your house to - ”

“Oh, no,” Leslie said, wide-eyed. “I don’t need FBI agents following me around. Trust me, I’m more than ready to put this behind me. I don’t need a constant reminder walking a few steps behind like some sort of bodyguard.”

“Ms. Knope…” Agent Wyatt was getting ready to unleash his most convincing argument on Leslie. He clearly had no idea just how stubborn she could be.

“Listen, Agent Wyatt. I understand that this is a very delicate situation, as you said. But I don’t want FBI agents following me. I will stay with my best friend tonight and tomorrow I’ll go to work like I always do.”

“Ms. Knope, this is a very shocking situation for you, I’m sure. Don’t you think it would be better to wait a few days?” Agent Wyatt cocked his head, as if he couldn’t figure out why Leslie would be so eager to pretend it had only been an ordinary night.

Leslie shook her head in protest. She looked up at the agent with a broken, humorless smile. “The show must go on, right?”

Agent Wyatt simply blinked at her for a few seconds, staring at Leslie as if he had never seen someone like her before, trying to figure her out. Finally, he cleared his throat and nodded reluctantly. “Very well. I’ll get Agent Traeger to take you to your best friend’s house then.”

“Thank you,” Leslie sighed in relief. “I appreciate it.”

“We may need to ask you to testify against him when we catch him. Can we count with you?” Agent Wyatt asked.

Leslie grabbed her coat and put it on. “Of course. Anything I can do to help, just let me know.”

“Thank you,” Agent Wyatt replied, and then extracted a card from his pocket. “Call me if you remember anything else that may be relevant.”

“I will,” Leslie promised, glancing quickly at the card before slipping it into her own pocket.

Wyatt led her out of the office, where they found Agent Traeger reading some files. Both agents exchanged a few words, before Agent Wyatt said goodbye and thanked Leslie once again for her cooperation.

On the drive to Ann’s house, Leslie leaned her head against the window and tried not to think too much. In just a few hours, she needed to get up and head back to City Hall. She was sure she would need all her strength to face that moment.

She thanked Agent Traeger and got out of the car when she pulled up at Ann’s building. Leslie had her own key, so she didn’t need to wake Ann up. She would have to tell her everything in the morning. She wasn’t excited about dealing with Ann now, knowing how overprotective she could be. She was bound to get very intense when she heard about what had happened.

Leslie thought it would take her ages to fall asleep, but she was out like a light as soon as she got comfortable on the couch. She was still hoping to wake up in her own bed and discover this had been only a nightmare.

It seemed as if she had only been asleep for a few minutes when Leslie blinked her eyes open and found Ann standing by the couch, looking down at her in surprise. Her hair was a mess and she was wearing a ratty Wamapoke County shirt with a hole on the left shoulder.

“Leslie? Why are you sleeping on my couch?” 

Leslie groaned and covered her face with one arm. She wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, especially since she had gotten less sleep than she deemed necessary. “I think I’m going to need a cup of coffee before I can talk about it.”

Ann tilted her head to the side. “You look terrible. Are you okay?”

She slowly sat up and brushed her hair out of her face. “Give me a minute and I’ll tell you everything. I… I just need a minute.”

Ann nodded and walked towards the kitchen, but kept glancing at her over her shoulder. In the morning light, the events of the previous night seemed so surreal, so impossible. How was she going to tell Ann, especially when she didn’t want to recall what had happened once again? Talking to the FBI agents, retelling everything over and over had been almost mechanic. But she knew that with Ann that would not be possible – she couldn’t detach herself from what had happened and simply state the facts. She would get emotional and she would have to deal with what she had seen, what she had been through.

She joined Ann in the kitchen a few minutes later, still unsure. She felt sick and bone tired, just as worn out as the previous night. When she handed her a steamy cup of coffee, she took an eager sip from it, hoping it would make her feel a little more normal.

“You know, you’re starting to worry me,” Ann commented from where she was leaning against the counter. “Is this about what we talked about last night? Are you going to quit working for the city or something?”

“No, it’s not that,” Leslie took a deep breath and looked at Ann over the rim of her mug. “Ann… something happened last night.”

“Bad hook up? I’ve had a few of those. It’s okay, I’m not going to judge you,” Ann shrugged, giving her a genuine smile that was full of support.

Shaking her head, Leslie put the cup down when she noticed her hands were trembling slightly. “Have you heard of those murders that had been happening for a few months now? It’s always women and they always find them naked.”

Ann’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Of course I have. It’s all over the news. One of my coworker’s cousins is one of the victims. I think she was one of the first cases too. But what does that have to do with anything?”

The kitchen was spinning around her. She felt a soft pressure on her arm and realized Ann had moved towards her and was holding her with her eyes full of concern.

“Leslie?”

“I saw him last night. I… he killed a girl two blocks away from my house, Ann,” Leslie explained in a strained voice.

“Shit,” Ann’s grip on her tightened unconsciously. “I can’t believe… are you alright?”

Ann guided her towards the breakfast bar and forced her down onto one of the stools. With her hand firmly on her best friend’s shoulder, Leslie began talking without even realizing she was doing it. She told her about the girl, how she had managed to hide in the phone booth until the police came, and how she had to talked to several FBI agents before she could go home.

Ann was clearly having a hard time processing what she was hearing. She opened and closed her mouth several times, as if she couldn’t decide what she wanted to say first. Lastly, she settled on a question. “How are you?”

“I think I’m still in shock,” Leslie replied with a sigh. “I’ve been mostly wishing to wake up, because this has to be a nightmare. And that poor girl…” She covered her mouth with a hand. She could still see the blood pouring from the wound in her stomach, painting her pale skin red.

Ann wrapped her arms around Leslie and held her for what felt like a very long time. Leslie finally allowed herself to cry, to let it all out, to release. She felt so selfish, crying for what she had been through, when the girl – and oh fuck, she didn’t even know her _name_ – had been the one to pay the higher price. But Agent Wyatt had been right the previous night – she had no way of knowing this would happen. She wouldn’t have been able to avoid it even if she had found the killer sooner. This was a maniac who had taken the lives of almost a dozen women by now. How would Leslie have stopped him? She might have fought back enough to escape when she felt trapped, but she wouldn’t have had the chance to get her to safety as well.

When had her life turned into the worst horror movie ever written?

“Hey,” Ann muttered after a while, rubbing Leslie’s back soothingly. “Let me go call work and tell them I can’t make it today. We can just camp on the couch all day and watch bad reality television. What do you say?”

“No, don’t even think about it,” Leslie said as she hastily wiped her tears away. “You are going to go to work, and I’m going to go to work.”

Ann froze, looking surprised and even more worried than she had a minute ago. “Are you crazy? You can’t go to work today, Leslie. You’ve just been through a very traumatic experience.”

“I know. But I need to do something normal, and my work is what’s normal to me, Ann.”

“No one would blame you if you wanted to take a few days off after this,” Ann replied hesitantly.

But Leslie shook her head adamantly. “No. I can’t. I have to go to work. I have to.”

Ann followed her as she walked into the living room to pick up her shoes and purse. She was wringing her hands anxiously. “Please. Do it for me? I’ll feel a lot better if you stay with me today. Leslie…”

“Ann,” she paused and turned to look at her. She needed her to understand – everything could have changed last night. But she was still here and she still had the opportunity to keep living her dream. Staying at home with her felt like she wasn’t taking advantage of it. “I’m going to go to work. And I’ll come back tonight and we can order take out and I’ll let you coddle me then. But not now. I need to do this.”

It looked like she wanted to protest, but one of the wonderful things about Ann was that she knew when to stop pushing. Maybe she didn’t agree with what Leslie wanted to do, but she would always put her feelings aside and let her do what she thought was best. “Okay. We’ll get pizza, and watch a movie. I can pick up some ice cream on my way back home from work. What do you say?”

Leslie smiled softly at her. She was glad to have her best friend on her side. She walked towards Ann and gave her hug. “That sounds awesome. I’ll see you tonight.”

Ann watched her leave the house with an anxious look on her face, and biting her lip to stop herself from begging Leslie to stay.

Once she left Ann’s house, Leslie looked down at her watch and then at her wrinkled clothes. She decided she had plenty of time to make a quick stop at her own house for a shower before she had to be at work. She was still too tired to walk, so she hailed a cab. She did her best not to doze off while she sat in the backseat waiting for the car to make its way through the morning traffic.

Her head a mess – memories, questions and random thoughts mingled together. She knew what she had lived through wasn’t normal. She knew it was a traumatic, life changing experience. She knew it would always be there, in the back of her mind, even when time passed and she moved on. But she needed to think about how thousands of people went through the same things, harder things, impossible things every single day. How they still managed to get up in the morning and keep living their lives. She had learned to get up in the morning after her father had died. She had managed to walk with her head raised high and fight against the tide even when she was beaten down time and time again.

She would manage to do the same thing now.

The driver pulled over in front of her house as Leslie fished some cash out of her pocket. The morning breeze caressed her face when she stepped out of the car and onto the sidewalk. It was almost ten in the morning by now. She wondered if she would have enough time to take a nap and eat something before she had to leave.

She walked up the steps while taking her keys out of her pocket, but stopped abruptly when she reached the door. The lock was broken. Leslie only had to give the door a little push for it to open all the way.

Her heart began beating wildly, as her breath caught in her throat. What else could happen to her in just twenty four hours? Wasn’t witnessing a murder enough for one day? Did she have to deal with a thief as well?

Discouraged and feeling even more exhausted, Leslie stepped into her house. She groaned in frustration when she saw how messy her living room was. The decorative pillows on the couch had been destroyed and their filling was lying everywhere. Some of the portraits had been knocked off the shelves and there was glass all over the floor. Her books were in pieces, pages ripped from them carelessly and strewn about.

But what got her attention was the fact that both her television and laptop were still where she had last seen them. What kind of thief leaves high priced electronics?

A shiver ran down Leslie’s spine as a thought crossed her mind. But no… it couldn’t be. Could it?

She walked to the kitchen and found it was just as much a mess as the living room. The drawers had been emptied onto the floor and the contents of the fridge were sprawled all over the counters and the table. Everything was a disaster and it would take Leslie forever to clean up, but it still didn’t mean anything, right? Maybe the thief had been looking for cash. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t taken anything.

When she walked into her bedroom, she knew for sure this was not an ordinary break in. She knew the person who had broken into her house hadn’t been looking for money or electronics or jewelry.

“Holy fuck,” Leslie whispered, feeling her legs weaken and her blood turn to ice.

The pillows on her bed had been stabbed, and right above the headboard, on the white wall, someone had painted a red heart in crimson blood.


	3. Chapter 3

It was another busy morning. Navigating Indiana required a special skill, born from habit and years of living in the city. Ben Wyatt made his way down the street, dark sunglasses perched on his nose, expertly avoiding the growing crowds of Indianans.

It had been a very long night, and he had gone home for just two hours to shower and put on some clean clothes. Still, he didn’t mind the fatigue. He had never been closer to catching this son of a bitch. The excitement of the chase and finally having concrete evidence kept him functioning like a well-oiled machine.

This case had been his obsession for a long time now. The murderer always committed the perfect crime. He was careful and smart, and in less morbid circumstances, Ben would have been impressed with how much of a virtuoso he was. Criminals always slipped up – sometimes they didn’t know about one of the surveillance cameras, or they fled the scene so quickly that they left something behind, or they screwed up while trying to deactivate an alarm. There was always something – but in the time that Ben had been following this particular criminal, he hadn’t been able to find a single shred of evidence.

Until now.

Ben walked into his favorite coffee shop and stood in line, waiting as patiently as he could. All he wanted was to be in his office already. He checked his phone, but he had no missed calls or messages from his colleagues. The results from the facial recognition scan would be arriving on his desk any minute now. He had no idea what they would find, but he hoped it would lead them somewhere.

He ordered his coffee, immediately moving towards the end of the bar to wait for it. In his head, he couldn’t stop organizing and listing every single detail he knew about this case. It had been fascinating from the beginning, and had only grown more and more urgent to solve as weeks and months went by. Ben had worked on plenty of cases before, but this one… this one was special.

He couldn’t figure out why the man targeted the same type of woman every single time – women with blonde hair and blue eyes. All of them had been naked when they were found, with those damn hearts carved somewhere on their bodies. He felt like there was a clue there, something he wasn’t seeing. Criminals who followed patterns, who always did something specific… those criminals were cheeky. They treated their crimes like they were games. They loved to see the FBI dancing around, trying to figure out something they left there in plain sight. Those hearts, the removed clothes… they had to mean something. Ben was growing increasingly frustrated because he had no idea what he was supposed to see. And he felt like a puppet and the murderer was just pulling his strings, and he was unable to break free.

Ben thanked the barista who handed him his needed cup of coffee. He took a sip, reveling in the warmth and the hit of caffeine, already making his way to the door. He needed to be in the bureau. It was going to be a long day, and Ben hoped it would be productive.

He stopped to hold the door open for a woman who was struggling with her baby’s stroller, just as his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket, not recognizing the number. He accepted the call as he nodded to the woman, who was thanking him with a smile.

“Agent Wyatt,” he greeted.

The first sound on the other end was a shaky breath and an echo of his own words. “Agent Wyatt.”

Ben frowned and stopped under a shop’s awning, slightly confused. The voice seemed familiar. “Yes?”

“It’s Leslie Knope. I… we met last night,” she sounded unsure, and he detected fear in her voice.

“Of course, Ms. Knope. I remember. Is everything alright?” Ben asked, suddenly alert.

Ms. Knope exhaled sharply, and her voice was tinged with anxiety. “No. No, it’s not.”

“Tell me what happened,” Ben said gently, already on edge.

“He was here. In my house,” Leslie explained. “I… he was in my home. He went through my stuff. He… he left one of those horrible red hearts in my bedroom.”

Ben felt the hairs at the back of his neck raise with her words. He patted his pockets in search of a pen and a piece of paper. He always carried some with him. “Give me your address.”

Leslie recited an address in Pawnee. Ben wrote it down as he mentally calculated how long it would take him to get there.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Ben promised, eyes scanning the street for a taxi.

“Please,” Leslie said a little desperately, and Ben couldn’t fathom why his heart constricted in his chest at how scared she sounded.

On the drive to Ms. Knope’s house, Ben called the bureau. He explained what had happened and asked for a team to search the place for evidence. It was extremely disturbing and odd that the killer had changed his pattern and broken into Leslie Knope’s home. Ben could only hope that he would have left some other clue that would lead the FBI to his capture sooner rather than later.

The taxi stopped on the curb in front of her place of residence. Ben checked the address quickly as he handed some money to the driver. He jogged to the front door and knocked, noticing the lock was broken, but the door was firmly closed. Ms. Knope must have barricaded something against it to secure it. Ben waited, letting one hand rest lightly on the gun at his side, just in case. It was always better to be prepared.

“Who is it?” Came a voice through the wooden door. Ben recognized it.

“Ms. Knope, it’s Agent Wyatt!” He exclaimed, and raised his badge to the peephole.

The door opened immediately, preceded by a scraping sound, like something heavy was being moved, revealing Ms. Knope. She was wearing the same clothes from the night before – the tight jeans, blue shirt and jacket. There were dark circles under her eyes, which were blown wide, trepidation and dread easy to detect. She looked more vulnerable than when she had been sitting in front of Ben at the bureau.

“He was in my house,” Leslie muttered, as she held onto the door, her knuckles white. “How did he know where I live?”

“I don’t know,” Ben answered, wishing he had a better answer to give her. “But we’ll figure it out. Can I come in?”

“Yes, please,” Leslie said, stepping aside.

Ben entered the house. There was a heavy trunk right behind the door, which explained how Ms. Knope had managed to close the door. The living room and kitchen were a mess, broken mugs mixed with stabbed pillows and cracked picture frames. Ms. Knope stayed by the door while Ben took a look around, her arms around herself as if she needed a protective shield.

“You said he left a heart painted?”

Ms. Knope nodded. “It’s in my bedroom.”

Ben followed her to the master bedroom. The pillows were in shreds, and there was red paint dripping all over the white duvet. The heart painted right above the headboard was familiar to Ben. He had seen it twelve times before – on every single one of this bastard’s victims.

Before Ben could say anything, there was a loud knock coming from the living room. April’s voice rang through the house.

“Ms. Knope? Wyatt?”

“That’s my partner,” Ben explained, as he left the bedroom quickly. Ms. Knope followed.

April Ludgate was a tall, stunning woman with dark hair, dark eyes, and some would even say, a dark soul. She was fierce and ruthless when it came to catching criminals, but Ben had known her long enough now to know that it was only her work persona. When April was off-duty, even though she was still sarcastic and sharp, she was a much nicer person. Unless you made her angry.

“This is Agent Ludgate,” Ben introduced her. She entered the home, followed by Agent Hart and Agent Traeger. “We’re going to need to search the house, see if we can find any evidence.”

“Do whatever you want, just tell me how he got here,” Ms. Knope said. She still had her arms wrapped around herself. “How could he know this is where I live? I didn’t come here last night. I went straight to Ann’s. I don’t understand.”

Ben exchanged a quick glance with Agent Traeger. Chris and Ben were actually very good friends outside of work. He was a little intense, too positive and joyful for this line of work, but he worked harder than anyone and Ben knew he was lucky to have him on his team.

“Ms. Knope, why don’t you come with me?” Agent Traeger asked gently. “You can sit outside with me, get some fresh air. I have a few questions for you.”

“I don’t…” It looked like she wanted to protest, clearly realizing they wanted to get her out of the way. But she deflated, with a defeated look on her face. “Fine.” She followed Chris outside just as two more agents arrived.

Ben had the whole house searched carefully. He stood with April in the middle of the bedroom and stared at the wall. He frowned at the scarlet heart.

“How did he do it?” Ben asked, mostly to himself. “How did he know this was her house?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” April replied harshly. “This fucker must have more resources than we thought.”

“I don’t get it,” Ben said quietly. He glanced at April, and she could see the concern on his face crystal clear. “He’s never changed his M.O. before. He’s never done anything unexpected. He goes after the same kind of women, he kills them, he carves hearts into them, and he leaves them there for us to find. He kills at random, he doesn’t stalk the same woman. He would have given up on her and moved on to someone he actually had a chance to kill easily. Why would he go after her now? Why did he change his tune?”

April’s dark eyes fixed on the painting on the wall as if she could see right through it. “Because Knope saw him. She’s our first witness. We never had anyone who could identify him before. I guess now he wants to either scare Knope into not talking…”

“… or make sure she can’t talk,” Ben finished, with a heavy feeling settling in his chest.

“Remember what Knope said in her statement last night?” April said, turning to look at Ben. “The killer told her she had pretty blue eyes and pretty blonde hair.”

Ben exhaled heavily. “She fits the description of the victims. But she’s alive.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with it,” April took another look around the room. “But it’s one hell of a coincidence,” Her phone began ringing. She glanced at the screen before turning back to Ben. “It’s my husband, I have to take this.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Ben nodded distractedly. He had a lot to think about.

He left the bedroom and went back into the kitchen just as Leslie Knope stepped back into the house, followed by Chris. She looked impatient and worried.

“Have you found anything?” She asked, marching straight towards Ben.

“Not yet,” Ben replied. “Why don’t you go back outside with Chris, sit in the van? Maybe we can get you some tea or coffee - ”

“No, I don’t want tea,” Leslie said. “I need to know what’s going on.”

One of the crime scene investigators walked up to Ben, saving him from having to answer.

“Agent Castro, do you have anything for me?”

Castro shook his head. “Nothing here. It’s all clean. He left no trace.”

Ben cursed under his breath. “Fine. Send the team to inspect the bedroom now, please. There has to be something somewhere.”

“He’s like a ghost,” Chris said as he watched Castro head to the bedroom with the others. “How are we supposed to find a ghost?”

“He’s no ghost,” Leslie Knope murmured. From where she was standing, she could see into her bedroom, and her eyes were fixed on that horrific red heart. “Trust me. He’s a real man.”

“And we will find him,” Ben assured her. Her stunning blue eyes snapped to him, and Ben felt slightly dizzy for a moment. “No matter what. I promise you that.”

Ms. Knope swallowed visibly, but she nodded as if she trusted Ben’s word.

For some reason, the idea of disappointing this woman sent a pang through Ben’s body that made him feel uneasy.

As she waited for a group of strangers to finish going through all of her stuff, Leslie sat in the FBI van with Agent Traeger. She slowly sipped some of the same bad coffee she had had the night before.

“Is this going to take much longer?” Leslie asked with a sigh. “I have to be at work in an hour.”

Agent Traeger frowned. “Ms. Knope… I don’t think you’ll be able to go to work today. It’s not safe.”

“What do you mean? You’ll catch him, right? This is going to be over soon.”

The sad, sorry smile Agent Traeger directed at her didn’t give her much hope. “I think it would be best if you called in sick today. At least until we know for sure what our next step is.”

Leslie knew when something wasn’t worth fighting. And deep down, she knew the agent was right – the past few hours had been a nightmare and it still wasn’t over. There was a crazy man on the loose who somehow knew where she lived. What if he found out where Leslie worked too? Leslie didn’t want anyone else to be in danger. It would have been careless of her to go to work.

“I just want things to go back to normal,” she murmured tiredly, as she took her phone out of her pocket to call the department.

Agent Traeger placed a reassuring hand on her arm. “They will soon. If anyone can catch this guy, it’s Agent Wyatt.”

Leslie gave him a little smile before dialing.

She told her boss she had a fever, and that she was hoping she would be better by the next day. And Leslie truly believed everything would be over by the time she had to leave for work the next day. She was convinced this was going to be resolved soon. She thought her life had been altered enough.

She had no idea how wrong she was.

Mere hours later, Leslie sat at her kitchen table with Agent Wyatt across from her. Most of the agents had gone back to the bureau, but Agents Ludgate and Traeger were still there. Traeger stood by the counter, a worried expression on his face, while Ludgate paced around the living room, talking quickly into her phone. Leslie had no idea what was going on, but she didn’t like the mood that was cast over her house at the moment.

“We couldn’t find anything,” Agent Wyatt said after a long pause. It looked like it had been hard for him to admit. “There’s nothing. He covered all his tracks.”

Leslie closed her eyes for a moment before focusing again on the man sitting in front of her. “What does that mean?”

“It means that we have no idea where he is or what he’s planning to do next,” Agent Wyatt replied as calmly as he could. “And that it’s not safe for you to stay here.”

“What? But… this is my home,” Leslie replied, confused. Her eyes darted between all three agents. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“You stayed with your friend last night, didn’t you?” Agent Wyatt asked and waited for Leslie to confirm with a nod. “I think it would be better if you stayed with her for a while. We’ll have two agents stationed at her home. We’ll make sure they’re there to protect you at all times until we catch this guy.”

“But you don’t know how long that will take,” Leslie said. When Wyatt didn’t confirm or deny that, she laughed bitterly. “What am I supposed to do until then? I can’t lose my job. I can’t stay hidden with Ann forever. Why is this man after me?”

“You saw him, Ms. Knope. You’re our very first witness. No one else has ever seen him before. And we have that now. It won’t be long until we find him. We already sent his identikit to every news media in this city.”

Leslie hid her face in her hands. She was tired, in desperate need of food and a shower, and so, _so_ over this. Everything was so wrong. “Okay, then I guess - ”

There was a loud pounding on the front door that startled all of them. Agent Ludgate immediately dropped her phone and grabbed her gun, pointing it at the door. Agent Traeger moved beside her quickly to back her up. Agent Wyatt stood and went around the table to stand before Leslie, one hand on her shoulder and the other on his weapon at his side.

There was a second knock, so loud that made the newly fixed door shake in its frame, followed by a shout. “Leslie! Leslie, are you there?! God, please, please, open the door!”

Leslie stood up, pushing past Agent Wyatt, who tried to stop her. “That’s Ann!”

Agent Wyatt gestured for the others to lower their guns and followed Leslie to the door. “Let me, Ms. Knope.”

Ann was still pounding on the door, becoming more and more desperate with every second. When Agent Wyatt finally opened it, she stood there frozen with her fist mid-air, and wide eyes that flew straight to the gun in the agent’s hands.

“Holy shit…” She said breathlessly.

Realizing there was no one else there but Ann, Leslie pushed past Wyatt to get to her. “Ann… what’s going on?”

“What’s…? Why is he pointing at me with a gun?” 

“I’m sorry for that. We have to take precautions,” Agent Wyatt apologized, putting his weapon back in the holster. “These are Agents Ludgate and Traeger, and I’m Agent Wyatt. We’re with the FBI.”

“Ann, he was here,” Leslie said, and now that she was here, she felt like she could let go a little. She clung to Ann’s arm for dear life. “That… that monster was in my home.”

“What?” Ann exclaimed, as her eyes widened in shock. “He was here too?”

Ann’s words made the blood running through Leslie’s veins turn to ice. The three agents stiffened too. Leslie was about to ask her to clarify, but Agent Wyatt was quicker.

“What do you mean, ‘too’?”

“He… he was in my house,” Ann explained, a little choked up, voice shaking with the weight of her words. “I mean… I assume it was him. I found this stuck to my door.”

She extracted a folded sheet of paper from her pocket. Leslie knew what she would find before Agent Wyatt even had time to grab it: there was a red heart drawn on it.

Leslie looked up from the paper, speechless. Her terrified eyes found Agent Wyatt’s gaze. There was something hard and angry in it, like a fire trying to break through to the surface.

“Change of plans,” he said. “I don’t think you can stay with your friend anymore, Ms. Knope.”

Leslie’s grip on her best friend’s arm was so strong that she was afraid she was cutting off her circulation. But she still couldn’t let go, and Ann didn’t seem to notice. When she spoke, her voice sounded rough and dry. 

“Then where the hell am I supposed to go?”


	4. Chapter 4

The bureau sometimes reminded Ben of a beehive – there were agents coming and going, moving in a hurry through the cubicles, working diligently on their cases, buzzing in excitement whenever they got a new lead, or in anger whenever things went wrong. He stood by the railing that gave him a view of the floor below and of the conference room where Leslie Knope and her friend were sitting, waiting for the FBI to tell them what to do. It wasn’t hard to notice how tense and helpless Leslie felt – she didn’t look like the kind of woman who liked to leave her fate in someone else’s hands.

Agent Hart walked into the conference room and deposited two steamy cups of coffee on the table for them. Ann smiled and thanked him, but Leslie didn’t move. She simply kept her hands intertwined and her eyes fixed on them, as if she could figure everything out just by focusing hard enough. Chris was standing at a desk on the main floor, talking to Agent Gergich, who was an expert on databases. Ben had them working on trying to find a match to the identikit they had scored the night before, but by the looks on their faces, they weren’t having much luck yet.

Suddenly, a hand rested on Ben’s forearm. He didn’t need to look up to know who was there. He recognized the long, manicured nails and the gold wedding ring that he sometimes stared at, pretending he didn’t feel a mixture of dread and jealousy. April was like a sister to him, and her life was in his hands whenever they went out in the field. He knew she could hold her own, and she did, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he had to tell Andy Dwyer that April had died in the line of duty. And now she was pregnant, and he felt his obligation to her grow. But he admired and envied the way in which she loved her husband and the marriage they had. Ben had long since given up on that kind of love for himself, but he could never hide the fact that he spent many sleepless nights alone and he felt a strange ache watching those around him with their families. 

“April, any news?” He asked, snapping out of his thoughts and straightening up to look at her.

April shook her head. “Not yet. I was about to order food for everyone. It looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”

“You can go home if you want,” Ben offered quietly. “I know you don’t like leaving Andy alone for so long these days, and you’re probably not feeling well.”

“I’m pregnant, not sick,” April replied, and when Ben looked at her, she shrugged, smiling in that sweet way that meant she was thinking of her husband and the baby they were soon to have. “That’s what he likes to remind me of, at least.”

“Still. You can - ” Ben began saying, but she interrupted.

“Look, of course I’d like to go home and have dinner with my husband, and finish painting that fucking nursery before my kid is twenty five and can actually paint it himself. But I also want to catch this asshole, and we’ve never been closer.”

“Do you really think we’re closer? We have nothing, April.”

“Well, someone’s quite the pessimist today,” April folded her arms over her chest and studied him carefully. “You look exhausted, Ben. Maybe you should go home.”

“I’m fine,” Ben replied dismissively, giving her a thumbs up and a weak smile. “See?”

“That’s what you’ve been saying for the past year. But we both know - ”

“April, not now. I said I’m fine, and I mean it,” Ben looked at her in a way that reminded her he was her boss, not just her friend. She stopped talking, but she pressed her lips together tightly, showing her dissent.

“Whatever you say. Do you want anything to eat then?” 

“No, I’m good. But make sure to get something for Knope and her friend. And get them some decent coffee,” Ben said, looking at the untouched mug on the conference room’s table. “They deserve at least that.”

She walked away without another word, leaving Ben alone with his thoughts again. What was he going to do? He needed a new plan, and he needed to figure out what he was going to do with Leslie Knope. The poor woman had nowhere safe to go…

As if she knew Ben was thinking of her, Leslie glanced up and her eyes found Ben’s. They stared at each other for a moment, and Ben did his best to give her a reassuring smile, but he had no energy left for it.

“Agent Wyatt?” A voice behind him said. “My office, please.”

Ben turned and found Captain Swanson standing at his office’s threshold, holding the door open for him. If the bureau was a beehive, then Captain Swanson was its king.

He was a formidable man, currently in his dress uniform, decked with awards and stripes. He was the youngest man to be promoted to such a position in the history of the FBI, and everyone knew it was because of how hard he had worked since he had joined the agency. He had been a remarkable agent in the field, but he was even more efficient as their leader. His agents trusted him, the rate of success in completed cases was off the charts since he had been promoted, and the high powers of the FBI were also aware of the positive impact of having him in charge. Times were changing, and that change needed to be reflected in every single sphere.

Ben ran his hands down his jacket to make sure it was a wrinkle-free as possible and followed Ron into the office. He pointed to the seat in front of him, and Ben took it with a nod.

“I take it we have no developments,” Ron commented. He stopped at a little table by the window where he kept a whiskey set. He poured a glass and handed it to Ben.

Ben accepted it out of courtesy, but he felt like he couldn’t drink anything, particularly alcohol. He wouldn’t be able to swallow it with the knot that had found its home in his throat. “Not yet, but I’m sure we’ll have something soon.”

“The situation’s gotten worse, which is something I couldn’t have imagined,” Captain Swanson said, as he took a seat behind his desk. He took a sip from his own drink. “We managed to score a witness, but now her security, and her family’s, is being threatened. We need to act quickly.”

“We’re doing everything we can. I have Agent Traeger and Agent Gergich working on - ” Ben began saying. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he was being judged, and he didn’t like the feeling. He knew he still hadn’t managed to close this case, to catch this killer, but he was good at his job and he didn’t want this to be a stain on his record.

“I know,” Captain Swanson interrupted, not ungently. He gave Ben a sympathetic look, as if wanting to calm him and convey his understanding. “I know you’re doing everything you can. But we always need to do better, especially now.”

Ben nodded, unsure of what to say.

“Agent Ludgate said you’re looking particularly exhausted lately,” Captain Swanson commented then, startling Ben with the sudden change of subject.

“I… I’m fine. Just a little stressed, but who isn’t?” He replied, trying to brush his words off.

“I have to admit… I’m worried, Ben.” The sudden familiarity sand lack of formality surprised him. Ron leaned across the desk to take a better look at him. “I know how hard this past year has been for you, and you refused to take time off after what happened. Anyone would have understood that you needed a break to… get back on your feet.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I didn’t need any time off. I like my job. I’m fine.”

Captain Swanson gave him a pointed look. “You’re starting to sound like a broken record, Ben.”

“I just want to do my job.”

“We’re sending Ms. Knope and her friend to a safe location until we catch the suspect,” Ron explained. “I think it would be a good time for you to take a step aside from this case, get some rest, maybe go on vacation. You have a very capable team that can handle this in your absence, and I will personally help them with anything they need.”

“No…” Ben muttered, holding onto the armrests tightly. He knew where this conversation was headed and he didn’t like it one bit. 

“You’re exhausted, you’ve been through a lot, and you still haven’t taken the time to deal with it. I know you don’t like the idea, but - ”

“Please,” Ben said, leaning forward and placing his hands on the desk. “I don’t need a break. I need to work. I need to be here and solve this case. I’ll go insane if you send me away to sit on a beach for days on end. You think that would help me, but it’s the opposite.”

Captain Swanson sighed and reclined against his seat, watching Ben intently. “You’re just like your father. He was just as dedicated as you are. I didn’t work with him long, but when you are like this… it’s like having him back in the office.”

Ben took a deep breath. “Then you know there’s no point in asking me to step aside from this.”

He rubbed his temple as if he was starting to get a headache, pressures of the job and case at hand wearing him thin. “Fine. You Wyatt boys are impossible.”

“Great. Thank you,” Ben relaxed and even grabbed his glass of whiskey to have a sip. “I won’t let you down.”

“But we have to make a compromise,” Captain Swanson said. His eyes were determined in a way that let Ben know that whatever he had decided, it wouldn’t be possible to contradict him now. “You can stay on the case, but you have a new assignment.”

Ben didn’t like the sound of that. He put the glass down and looked at him. “And what assignment is that?”

Ron smiled at him as he leaned back in his chair. “Your family still owns that ranch in Minnesota, right?”

\-------------------

“You’re making me dizzy.”

Leslie stopped pacing around the conference room and looked at Ann. “I can’t sit still any longer. This whole situation is beyond frustrating.”

“I know. I want to go home too, Leslie. But we have to wait and see what happens,” Ann muttered, stretching her arms over her head to make her muscles pop, and tilted her neck to the left and then to the right to work out any kinks she may have acquired. “They want to help us. We have to let them.”

“We don’t really have a choice,” Leslie said. She stopped at the end of the table and placed her hands on it, leaning towards Ann. “God, I miss my dad. I wish I could hug him right now.”

Ann’s grin was crooked and nowhere near happy. “I know you do. But it would kill him to think you’re even a little bit in danger.”

Leslie closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. She thought of her father every day, but she had never thought of him as often as she had in the past twenty four hours. She didn’t believe in heaven or angels or the afterlife, but she wished she could ask her dad for guidance, wherever he was.

The door opened and Agent Ludgate walked into the conference room, carrying two big bags of Chinese takeout and a carton drink holder. She placed everything on the table and rummaged through the bags.

“Dinner’s served,” she announced. She then handed a Starbucks cup to Leslie. “The boss thought you could use some decent coffee and not the sewer water we’re used to drinking here.”

The warmth that passed through the paper cup right into Leslie’s hands was an unexpected comfort. She smiled. “Thank you. That was very nice of him.”

“Do you know when we’re going to be able to get out of here? My friend is pretty tired. She didn’t get enough sleep last night,” Ann said, going into protective mode.

Agent Ludgate looked at them apologetically. “I’m afraid not. But I’ll see if we can find you a quiet place where you can take a nap and lay down for a bit.”

“What about - ” Leslie started saying, but her question was cut abruptly by the commotion outside the conference room.

Agent Wyatt was standing at the door of an office on the second floor, and he didn’t look happy. He was gesticulating wildly, speaking frantically to a man who looked back at him like he wasn’t impressed in the slightest. He replied calmly and without waver, but it was obvious Agent Wyatt wasn’t pleased with what he was hearing.

The entire bureau had gone quiet to watch the scene. From the conference room, Leslie didn’t manage to hear much, except for the last few words, which were spoken in a much louder tone.

“It’s either that, Agent Wyatt, or you’re off the case!” The man snapped, moustache shaking with the volume and force of his tone. “I can’t have you leading this search when you’re not in your best shape! Now, are you going to accept my conditions or should I just send you off on vacation for a few weeks?”

Leslie was sure that even from the distance, she could see a vein in Agent Wyatt’s neck pumping wildly.

“Fine!” Agent Wyatt exclaimed, and stormed down the stairs. With one sharp look from him, everyone in the main floor went back to work like nothing had happened.

“Shit,” Agent Ludgate murmured under her breath. She turned on her heels and left the room to join Wyatt. She tried placing a placating hand on his arm, but he jerked away from her.

“What the hell was _that_ about?” Ann mumbled, her mouth already full of Chinese food.

Leslie frowned as she watched them. Ludgate and Wyatt were standing very close together, even though it was obvious he wasn’t happy with her at the moment. It was almost intimate and Leslie felt compelled to look away. She wondered if there was something going on beyond a professional relationship.

Casually, Leslie walked towards the door, trying to catch whatever they were saying.

“I did it because I care about you, you know that,” Agent Ludgate was saying very quietly.

Wyatt was breathing heavily, like it was the most difficult thing he had ever done. “I’ve been working my ass off for this case. I can’t believe he - ”

“It’s not like he’s removing you from the case. You’ll still be involved. And it’s a very important assignment,” Agent Ludgate watched him, an unusually tender look on her face. “Ben… we’ve all been worried. This will be good for you.”

“I’m not a child that needs to be looked after! I can take care of myself!”

The same man that had been arguing with Agent Wyatt just moments ago reappeared on the second floor landing. He walked down the stairs and headed straight for the conference room. Leslie moved closer to Ann so he wouldn’t notice that she had been eavesdropping.

When they saw him entering the room, both Ludgate and Wyatt followed him. Leslie leaned against the table, still holding her coffee, and Ann put down her food, distracted by the swarm of attention.

“Hello, I’m Captain Ron Swanson,” he said with a forced smile. “I’m very sorry we’ve kept you waiting here for so long. I understand how frustrating that must be.”

Agent Wyatt walked past him and towards the ceiling high window. He stood there, watching the city on the other side of the glass, with his arms crossed over his chest in indignation and his muscles stiff. Agent Ludgate leaned against the door, a slight frown on her face.

“But we have determined it would be better if you were transferred to a safer location,” Captain Swanson continued. “Immediately.”

“A safer location? What do you mean by that?” Ann asked.

“We strongly believe it would be better for the two of you to leave Indiana for the time being. You would move into an FBI-approved location, and one of our agents would stay with you, until the suspect is caught.”

But Ann was already shaking her head. “I can’t leave Indiana.”

Leslie wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea either. She knew she had just told her best friend that she wished she could go back to her childhood home where she could be with her father, but this was not what she had in mind. “We both have jobs. We can’t just abandon everything and leave the state.”

Captain Swanson’s face was compassionate and showed some mercy, but there was a sharpness lying just underneath that told them it wouldn’t be of much use to argue with this man. “I understand, but this is a serious situation, Ms. Knope. We’re trying to keep both of you safe. I think that should be your priority now too. There will not be jobs to come back to if you’re dead.”

Leslie deflated. _Well, I can’t argue with that logic._ Just the day before, she had been complaining about working in the Parks and Recreation Department, and now she was being told she couldn’t go back to work. Even if it wasn’t the most perfect job she had ever had, she still loved it. She didn’t want to jeopardize it.

But that monster had been in her house, in Ann’s house… if she stayed, if she wasn’t safe… how long would it be until this psycho found her? How long would it be until her whole life derailed again?

“God, this is so fucked up,” Leslie mumbled, hiding her face in her hands. She was so tired. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I’m not going,” Ann said, making Leslie turn around sharply to face her. “I’m sorry, Leslie. I can’t. I’ve worked too hard to be where I am now, and I can’t risk it. I’m not going to uproot my life on a maybe. If you had your dream job, would you walk away from it, just like that? I’m not going to screw this up.”

Leslie felt like she was choking. “Ann…”

“Please,” Ann begged desperately. “Don’t ask me to do it. If you ask me to go with you, I won’t be able to say no. Please, Leslie.”

“But what if something happens to you?” Leslie dropped in the seat next to Ann’s and held onto her arm. “He was in your house too. What if he…? Ann, you’re all I have left.”

“I’m going to be okay,” Ann assured her, but the anguish grew bigger and bigger in Leslie’s heart. “I’ll take care of myself.”

“We can assign an agent to stay with her,” Captain Swanson interrupted. His eyes fell on Leslie. “You’re the one he’s after, Ms. Knope. You’re the real target.”

If Captain Swanson thought those words were going to comfort her, he was wrong. Leslie held onto Ann’s arm even harder, and looked at her best friend with tear-filled eyes. 

“You have to promise me you’ll be here when I come back,” Leslie pleaded. “I’ll come back, and I’ll visit you at the hospital and you’ll be head nurse, and this will be over.”

“I promise,” Ann smiled weakly at her, before looking up at Captain Swanson. “Where are you taking her?”

Captain Swanson shook his head. “That is classified information. The less people know about it, the better. But we’ll take care of her. I give you my word.”

“Of course,” Ann accepted sadly. 

Captain Swanson turned to Agent Ludgate. “Get Agent Traeger. We’ll set everything up.”

“Is Agent Traeger going to be with Leslie?” Ann asked nervously. “Is that who’s going to take care of her?”

“No, Ms. Perkins,” Captain Swanson replied, glancing back at her. “But I’m assigning my best agent to take care of your friend.”

“And who is that?” Ann wanted to know. 

Finally, Agent Wyatt spoke from his spot by the window. “That would be me.”


	5. Chapter 5

Leslie was alone in the conference room, staring out the window with her arms around herself. She felt cold despite the warm June evening. In that same moment, two agents were in her house, going through her closet and stuffing whatever they considered necessary into a bag so Leslie could take a bit of her old life into this new one. Leslie knew this was absolutely batshit crazy that this was what her life was now. But she was slightly reassured by the notion that she was able to keep some of her own stuff around. She was freaked out that so many people had invaded her privacy, her safe haven, so many times in the past few hours. First a murderer who seemed to have some kind of vendetta against her, and now the FBI, forcing her to leave everything she loved and everything she had.

“Are you okay?”

Leslie startled. She had been on her own since Ann had been taken home a couple of hours ago. Saying goodbye to her best friend hadn’t been easy either. She understood why Ann couldn’t go with her, but that didn’t mean Leslie wasn’t going to worry herself sick until she got to see Ann again. If something were to happen to Ann–

Agent Wyatt was standing at the door, watching her with a slight frown. Leslie hadn’t noticed until now just how spent he looked. And maybe that was an understatement, because he had been up just as long – if not longer – than she had. He had removed his jacket at some point during the day, and rolled up his sleeves. His tie was looser around his neck, and he looked like he needed a good night’s sleep.

When Leslie didn’t reply immediately, Agent Wyatt made a grim face. “Stupid question, I know,” he spoke, walking into the conference room.

“I figure when people ask that question, what they want to hear is a positive answer,” Leslie said, letting out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t think I have enough energy left to lie like that now.”

“I’m the kind of man who prefers the truth, no matter how bad it is,” Agent Wyatt replied, leaning against the table. “That’s the only way to know what I’m dealing with.”

Leslie glanced out the window again and followed the contours of the Pawnee buildings with her eyes. The city was beautiful in the spring. But then again, Pawnee was the kind of city that looked lovely no matter what season it was. It was just one of the many reasons she had fallen in love with it. “I’m wondering when I’ll be able to come home, where I’m going now, and if Ann will be okay. I’m scared that I’ll lose everything I worked so hard for only because I was stupid enough to step into a dark alley in the middle of the night instead of – ”

“You weren’t stupid,” Agent Wyatt interrupted, voice firm but gentle. His doe brown gaze fell on Leslie. For a moment, she felt enveloped by warmth, as if she was suddenly under a cozy blanket and she felt content, even for a fleeting moment. “You were very brave. You thought you could help, so you put your own safety aside to do it. You had no idea just how bad things were.”

Leslie shrugged. She wasn’t feeling particularly brave right now.

“Now, I can’t tell you exactly when you’ll come home, or what you’ll find when you return,” Agent Wyatt continued. “But I can promise you this: your friend will be okay. Agent Traeger is one of my most trusted teammates. He’s fierce, responsible, dedicated and he _will_ keep her safe.”

“He’s also too upbeat and positive for his own good,” Leslie said, biting her lip. She didn’t mean to be insulting, but she doubted the seriousness Agent Traeger possessed. 

To her surprise, Agent Wyatt chuckled under his breath. “Don’t let him fool you. He can handle himself just fine. He knows when to turn it on. I think he just likes to keep his emotions at bay so that he doesn’t have to think about all the death and evil we deal with. I would trust that man with my own life.”

Leslie only nodded, not wanting to offend Agent Wyatt. She was about to leave the state with this man, after all. It wasn’t a good idea to get on his bad side. And where _were_ they going? Leslie didn’t like unanswered questions, and she hadn’t been able to find many answers to her questions these past few days.

“Can you tell me where we’re going?”

Leslie must have sounded just as pitiful as she felt, because Agent Wyatt looked truly sorry.

“Not yet,” he said softly, eyes apologetic and gave her a reassuring smile. “But we’ll be leaving in about an hour, I’ll tell you once we’re on the road.”

“Do I need my passport? Because I didn’t tell your agents where to look for it.”

“We’re not leaving the country,” Agent Wyatt answered, and then stood straight and walked towards the door again. Leslie guessed the conversation was over. “I have to check everything’s in order. Do you need anything?”

“Besides going home to my own bed and pretending this never happened?” Leslie asked sarcastically. “Nope, I think I’m good.”

Agent Wyatt smiled sadly, gave her a short nod, and left the room. Leslie turned back to the window. She had to memorize the view in case she never got to see Pawnee again.

\-------------------

If he had been perfectly honest, Ben would have preferred to take a helicopter. He and Captain Swanson had considered the option but had realized it would catch unwanted attention. So, Ben was stuck behind the wheel for the next four hours.

He reached for the travel mug in the cup holder and took a sip of lukewarm coffee a little too greedily. The coffee was as awful as usual, but he hoped it would keep him awake for the rest of the drive.

Ben had imagined Ms. Knope would fidget in the seat beside him all the way to Minnesota, asking questions that Ben wasn’t sure how to answer yet. But Ms. Knope must have been a lot more exhausted than she had been willing to admit, because she was fast asleep before they were even out of Indiana.

Despite everything, Ben was glad for the sudden quiet it provided. He hadn’t been exactly eager to follow Captain Swanson’s orders, and if it wasn’t for his mission of keeping Ms. Knope safe, he would have turned the car around and gone back to the office. He needed to work with his team, to search for new evidence, to catch this bastard. Ben had been after him for ten months now, and he had never been this close; he had never had as many clues as he did now.

Ben wasn’t desperate to be open and honest with anyone else, but it was time to admit it to himself, at least. It wasn’t just that he wanted to get his job done. He didn’t want to leave Indiana because he hadn’t been back to Minnesota since before everything had happened the previous year. He wasn’t looking forward to the memories. He wasn’t looking forward to having enough silence and time to think about that night.

Before the images could flash before his eyes like a horror movie, he reached for the radio and turned it on. A mindless pop song filled the car, and Ben quickly adjusted the volume so it wouldn’t wake Ms. Knope. It was better to let her rest.

\-------------------

Leslie opened her eyes, and a rush of disorientation hit her. It took her a minute to remember why she was in a car. As she stared out the window, she only saw darkness and fields that stretched as far as she could see. When she turned her head, she saw Agent Wyatt driving, both his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes fixed on the road ahead. He seemed tense, and Leslie wondered if he was worried he would fall asleep while driving. He didn’t look well.

“Where are we?” Leslie asked in a sleepy voice, as she sat up.

Agent Wyatt seemed alarmed by her voice, like he had forgotten she was there at all. “Oh, hey. We just entered Minnesota.”

“Minnesota?” Leslie repeated. She rubbed her eyes and looked out her window again. “How long was I asleep?” But before Agent Wyatt could reply, Leslie asked another question: “Do you want me to drive? You look like you could use a nap. Just tell me where we’re going and I can take it from here.”

“No need,” Agent Wyatt replied. “We’re almost there.”

Leslie arched an eyebrow, and took a third look around. Almost _where_? She couldn’t see anything that could even suggest a destination. She squinted her eyes, trying to figure out what those shapes in the distance were. Oh… could those be– 

“Are those _cows_?”

Agent Wyatt glimpsed over at her and frowned before focusing back on the road. “Yes? Have you never seen a cow before?”

“Of course I’ve seen cows!” Leslie exclaimed, a little irritated. “What I mean is… are we staying in some kind of inn? A hotel in a little town, maybe? You’re not going to make me camp in some field in the middle of nowhere, right?”

For a moment, it looked like Agent Wyatt was amused, but then he went back to the jaded air he had been carrying all day. “No, I’m not taking you camping. But we’re also not going to a hotel or inn. We have to go as unnoticed as possible. Checking in a hotel could be risky, even if we used fake names.”

Leslie sighed and let her head drop back against the seat. “Right. I almost forgot we’re in an episode of Criminal Minds here.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be comfortable where we’re going,” Agent Wyatt took a turn onto a dirt road. Leslie liked this less and less with every passing second.

“And will I get to know exactly where we’re going at some point?” Leslie asked. She wasn’t a very patient woman when she was running on a combination of lack of sleep and lack of caffeine.

At that very moment, Agent Wyatt stopped in front of a wooden gate. There was a sign next to it, but it was too dark for Leslie to read it. The fence seemed to surround a rather large property, and if Leslie wasn’t mistaken, she could see a house not too far from there.

“We’re here,” Agent Wyatt announced. “Welcome to Wyatt Ranch, Ms. Knope.”

Agent Wyatt got out of the car and headed for the gate. He extracted a set of keys from his jacket pocket and opened it. When he began to drive the car down the path towards the house, the headlights fell on the sign and Leslie could make out the letters perfectly this time. 

_Wyatt Ranch_.

Once Agent Wyatt had parked the car in front of the house, Leslie opened the door and descended, happy to be able to stretch her legs. She was suddenly aware of the silence that surrounded her. The sound of Agent Wyatt’s footsteps as he walked towards the back of the car to retrieve their bags from the trunk seemed to echo loudly in the distance. Leslie felt compelled to shush him, as if scared he would wake up the entire state. But it was hard to worry about that, because right there, in the middle of the night, with no other houses visible in the distance, they could have been the only two people in all of Minnesota.

“Shall we?” Agent Wyatt mumbled, nodding towards the front door.

It was a one-story house. There were three steps leading up to a porch that was surrounded by a wooden banister. The two front windows were big, but closed tightly, as if no one had been there in a while. Agent Wyatt used his key to open the door, and stepped inside, immediately finding the light switch. Leslie found herself standing in a small dining room that appeared to also be a living room. Everything around her was wooden, from the furniture to the walls. Despite the rather warm temperature, Leslie felt like she had stepped into a cabin made for a winter wonderland – the temptation to sit in front of the fireplace with a blanket and a good book was almost too difficult to resist.

Agent Wyatt dropped their bags on the big beige sofa. It wasn’t stylish in the slightest, but it looked comfortable. Leslie watched as Agent Wyatt switched a few more lights on, and then went into the adjacent kitchen. He opened a few cabinets and the fridge before facing Leslie again.

“There isn’t much food, but we’ll get some tomorrow. Feel free to use anything you need.”

“I would love a shower, if that’s possible?” Leslie asked shyly. She had been wearing the same clothes for over a day, and if she couldn’t shower and change into clean clothes soon, she would lose it.

“Of course,” Agent Wyatt nodded. He grabbed Leslie’s bag from the couch and made a gesture for her to follow. “Here, let me show you where the bathroom is.”

The house wasn’t very large. They went down a short hallway with three doors in it. Agent Wyatt showed her the bathroom and then pointed at the door next to it. “This will be your bedroom. I’ll check if there’s clean sheets while you shower. If there’s anything you need when you’re out, I’ll be in the living room.”

Leslie was about to thank him when a yawn interrupted her. She covered her mouth in embarrassment and looked at Agent Wyatt apologetically. “I think I’ll be going straight to bed, if that’s okay?”

“That’s fine, Ms. Knope,” Agent Wyatt answered kindly. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Leslie smiled at him, but there was nothing happy about it.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Agent Wyatt said, and after Leslie nodded her agreement, he walked away.

Despite her nap in the car, Leslie realized she was still exhausted. She stepped into the shower and almost moaned in pleasure at the perfect pressure of the hot water against her back. She could feel some of the tension she had been carrying around all day wash away.

When she went into the bedroom, she didn’t even bother looking around. Her eyes found the bed and her tired feet led her straight to it. She lifted the blankets and slipped into it, not caring that her hair would be a disaster the next morning because she hadn’t bothered drying it first. As soon as her head touched the pillow, Leslie was asleep, eager to leave that day behind.

She wasn’t sure what the next day would bring, but it couldn’t get any worse, right?

When Ben heard the bedroom door closing, he knew he wouldn’t see Ms. Knope until the morning. He removed his jacket and folded it over the back of the couch, before unhooking the gun holster and putting it carefully on the coffee table. The house was as quiet as a cemetery now.

For once in the past few months, Ben was happy to be dead tired. He allowed himself to fall onto the couch, the cushions molding around him as if they were getting ready to swallow his entire body. He grabbed a throw pillow and slipped it behind his head. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, letting the situation sink in.

He had no idea how long they would have to stay there. Ben had been with the bureau long enough to be realistic – finding a suspect wasn’t the kind of thing he could schedule. He knew they could find the killer in a week, a month, a year or never. Maybe everything would be resolved in the blink of an eye. Or maybe the case would eventually go cold and the bureau would move onto something newer, something more urgent. Ben didn’t like it when that happened, but he knew how things were. You couldn’t be stuck on just one case forever. There were new cases on his desk on a daily basis. The world didn’t stop for just one criminal.

But Leslie Knope’s world had stopped for this killer. And so had all the other victims’ worlds.

His eyes fell on the framed picture sitting on a shelf. The four smiling faces in it spoke of a different time, a different life all together. Ben also knew what it was like for your whole world to stop.

The silence and the exhaustion finally lulled him to sleep. He had no idea what the next day would bring, but whatever it was, Ben hoped it would be good.

\-------------------

Leslie woke up to a pool of her own drool on the pillow. She wiped her mouth sleepily as she sat up, feeling as if her whole body was a mixture of relaxed and tense at the same time. She felt loose after such a deep sleep, but there was a tension in her shoulders she couldn’t seem to get rid of.

And when she looked around the unfamiliar bedroom, she remembered why.

She wasn’t in Pawnee – or even Indiana – anymore. She was in Minnesota – of all places – hiding from a serial killer. Because her life had become a rather disturbing Stephen King novel.

She sighed. At least she would be safe here. Who would ever think to chase her all the way to Minnesota?

The bedroom she was in was lovely, she noticed, glad to find anything to distract her. The bed was big and comfortable, and the maroon walls helped carry out the cabin-in-the-middle-of- nowhere theme. There was a large framed picture of the ranch hanging over the headboard, clearly taken decades ago, probably when the Wyatt family had just bought it. The house was different back then, half-built and slightly dejected looking, but Leslie could see the potential for what it had become. It had clearly taken a lot of hard work to get it to where it was now. This was obviously a beautiful place.

Leslie tried to perceive any sounds from the rest of the house, but it was dead silent. Agent Wyatt was probably still sleeping – the poor man had looked almost ready to pass out by the time they had arrived the previous night, and Leslie couldn’t blame him. But now that she was up, she didn’t want to stay in bed any longer. She wanted to look around the house, maybe – hopefully –find some coffee, and figure out what she was supposed to do until this whole ordeal was over. But mostly the coffee part.

She got out of bed, made a quick stop at the bathroom and walked down the hallway towards the living room. There was another door in the hallway, and it was closed, so Leslie guessed it was Agent Wyatt’s bedroom, and she had been right to think he was still sleeping.

The kitchen was practically empty, but she did manage to find an unopened bag of coffee and a coffee maker. She almost wept in relief. There was no milk or creamer – or sugar, goddammit – but at least she wouldn’t have caffeine withdrawals. While she waited for the pot to filled – tapping her fingers impatiently on the kitchen counter – Leslie decided to look around the living room.

There were three bookcases filled with a mixture of books, pictures and different ornaments. Leslie ran a finger over the book spines, seeing if she could find any of her favorites. She spotted several classics she had never gotten around to read, some cook books and lots of books related to life on farms and ranches. The pictures caught her eye next – most of them featured the same couple throughout the years, sitting on the porch, at a fair, riding horses, laughing and holding hands. They looked happy, like the kind of people you wished were your grandparents so you could sit next to them and let them tell you stories for hours. Leslie figured they were Agent Wyatt’s grandparents. She thought there was something very familiar in the way the woman’s eyes wrinkled when she smiled, even if Leslie hadn’t seen Agent Wyatt smiling out of sheer happiness.

In the rest of the photographs, it didn’t take long for Leslie to recognize Agent Wyatt. In most of them, he was still a boy or a teenager. He seemed happy and carefree, the way kids should always look. His parents seemed loving, always with their arms around each other and their kids. The other boy, Agent Wyatt’s brother, Leslie guessed, was an extremely handsome boy, a few years older. He was obviously a young adult in the most recent picture, where Agent Wyatt had to be around fifteen or sixteen. Next to them was an even younger girl, his sister, she guessed. Leslie wondered if Agent Wyatt and his siblings were close.

Before she could finish looking at all the pictures, she heard a sound coming from outside the house. She frowned and walked towards the window to see what it was. She was shocked to find an old man with skin almost golden from working in the sun, wearing dirty jean coveralls, and accompanied by a shepherd dog that wouldn’t stop wagging its tail. The man seemed just as shocked to see Leslie, but waved in greeting nonetheless.

Leslie opened the door when the man walked up the steps towards it. “Hello.”

“Hey there!” The man said, with a heavy accent Leslie couldn’t place. “I didn’t know someone was here. Is Mr. Ben with you?”

“Um, yes, he’s here,” Leslie replied. “I’m sorry, but you are…?”

“Oh, I’m Pedro,” the man said with a friendly smile. “I’m the keeper. I thought it was weird to see a car, because Señor Ben didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“I’m afraid it was a bit of an impromptu getaway,” a voice said, and Leslie saw Ben approaching the house from the path. He was sweaty, wearing gym clothes, and had obviously gone for a run. “I’m sorry I didn’t call, Pedro. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Pedro’s smile got even bigger, and he was clearly happy to see Agent Wyatt. “Señor Ben! Benditos los ojos que lo ven! How have you been? It’s been too long!”

“I’m good, Pedro, thank you. I’ve been busy, that’s all,” Agent Wyatt replied, joining the other two on the porch. “How are you? How’s your leg?”

“Old, just like me, but it hasn’t stopped me yet,” Pedro said with a chuckle. “I’m sorry, I’m so rude. Is she your fiancée? It was time for you to bring her here – ”

Leslie parted her lips to correct the man, but Agent Wyatt, after hesitating for a moment, nodded.

“Yes, this is my fiancée,” he said, earning a confused look from Leslie. “We’ve both been busy, but it’s nice to be here.”

Pedro extended a hand to Leslie. “It’s nice to finally meet you!”

“You too,” Leslie said, hoping she didn’t sound as out of place as she thought she did. “My name’s Leslie Kno – ”

“Knopf,” Agent Wyatt interrupted. He wrapped his arm around Leslie’s waist and gave it a firm, pointed squeeze. “Leslie Knopf.”

“Well, I’m glad you two are here,” Pedro said, not noticing anything unusual. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Actually, yes,” Agent Wyatt said, giving the man a warm smile. “Coming here was so unplanned that we didn’t bring any food. Would you mind making a trip to the supermarket in town? We have to finish unpacking and – ”

“Of course, Señor Ben, no problem at all,” Pedro replied, waving his hands in a gesture that let them know it was perfectly alright. “Just make a list of what you need, and I’ll come pick it up in an hour. I’m going to feed the animals in the meantime.”

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Pedro walked away, waving over his shoulder. The dog stayed, wagging his tail at Agent Wyatt until he got down on one knee to scratch behind his ears and give him a belly rub.

“Um…” Leslie choked out, bewildered by what had just unfolded. “What the hell was _that_?”

“Pedro has been working here since I was kid, but even though I trust him, we can’t take any risks,” Agent Wyatt explained. Leslie tried very hard not to follow the drop of sweat that was making its way down the column of his neck. “It’s better if he doesn’t know your real name.”

“Okay…” Leslie nodded, because she could understand that. “And what about our engagement?”

“I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” Agent Wyatt said, standing up and looking at Leslie. “But it’s a good excuse. I haven’t been here in over a year, and the last he must have heard of me is that I was engaged. Why else would I have brought you here?”

Leslie knew it made sense. She would have just liked to know in advance so she could act more convincing. “Alright. But won’t your _actual_ fiancée be upset when she finds out?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Agent Wyatt answered, making a dismissive gesture with his hand as he walked into the house. Leslie followed him. “You made coffee? Great. I’ve been dying for a cup.”

“Agent Wyatt – ” Leslie started, but she was abruptly interrupted.

“It’s Ben,” he said. “It would be weird if you called me Agent Wyatt in front of Pedro.”

“Right…” Leslie leaned against the counter and watched as Agent – as _Ben_ – poured himself a cup of coffee. “Is there any chance anyone from your family might stop by and realize I’m not your actual fiancée though?”

Ben stopped with his cup halfway to his mouth. His eyes found Leslie’s. “No. There’s absolutely no chance of that happening.”

“Okay,” Leslie shifted awkwardly in her spot. “Look, I just – ”

“Ms. Knope,” Ben cut her off in a soft tone of voice. “I know you’re nervous. I know this isn’t ideal in any way. But I promise it’ll be okay. Let’s think of it as a… vacation of sorts. We’ll stay here for a few days until things are resolved and then we both get to go back to our busy lives.”

“Forced vacations, you mean?” Leslie retorted, rolling her eyes. Ben nodded and poured her a cup of coffee, extending it to her as a peace offering. Leslie accepted it eagerly. “Fine. I guess I can do that.”

“Perfect,” Ben smiled at her.

“Just one condition,” Leslie said, and Ben raised his eyebrows in question. “Call me Leslie?”

“Leslie it is,” Ben replied, and then clicked their mugs together as if they were toasting to a new beginning.

\-------------------

Leslie was bored. She had been in this place for less than a day and she was missing the city like she had been away for years. She missed City Hall, her house, her friends, Ann. She missed having a coffee shop on every corner whenever she needed a caffeine fix, and she desperately missed JJ’s Diner and those waffles.

She wasn’t made for life in a ranch. There really wasn’t much to do – there was only so many times a person could change the channels on the television only to finally admit there was nothing good on, and even though a few of the books on the shelves looked interesting, Leslie wasn’t sure if she was allowed to read them. Ben hadn’t been around enough to ask him either.

Agent Wyatt had spent most of the morning outside, with his phone glued to his ear and talking to the bureau. Leslie was glad that he was so invested in catching this guy, because it meant that Leslie would get to go home soon if they succeeded, but she wouldn’t have minded the company. Anything was better than this silence – it was deafening and suffocating.

Leslie decided to venture outside. Maybe she could go for a walk, get to know the ranch a little better. When she stepped onto the porch, she shaded her eyes from the sunlight, looking around for Ben, until she saw him, still on his phone and with the dog following him as he walked towards the gates. Leslie considered going after him, but decided to leave him alone. If he was working, it was better not to disturb him. Instead, she walked towards the back of the house to see what else the ranch had to offer.

There was a stable and a few fenced areas. She couldn’t see where the Wyatt territory ended, so she guessed it was larger than she had originally thought. She could see Pedro, filling a huge trough with water using a hose. A brown calf approached him to have a drink.

“Señorita Knopf! Nice to see you again. Are you having a look around?” Pedro asked, smiling at her when he saw her.

“Yeah. I’ve never been on a ranch before. I was curious,” Leslie shrugged. “Have you worked here long?”

“Practically all my life,” Pedro answered. “Ben’s grandmother hired me when I was a young man, and I had recently married my Rosa. We needed a place to live and she helped us. I still live in the same house she gave us. It’s right there, you see it?” Pedro pointed in the distance, and Leslie could see a one-story house at the end of the ranch. “We raised three kids there, and sent them to college. We had a good life here.”

“Does Rosa help you with the ranch?”

“She did. She used to feed the animals, milk the cows, gather the eggs the chicken lay. I did the heavier stuff, like mowing the lawn or repair things that needed repairing. I built this stable, see?” Pedro proudly showed her the stable. “But my Rosa died, four years ago. So now it’s just me.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – ” Leslie began, but Pedro waved her apologies away.

“No need to worry. I don’t mind talking about her. I miss her every day, but it makes me happy to remember her.”

Pedro offered to give her a quick tour of the ranch, and since she had nothing better to do, Leslie agreed. She liked how much Pedro seemed to love what he did – Leslie couldn’t have imagined that someone could love a simple life like this one so much. It made her wonder why she had always thought she needed more in order to feel complete, while others found true happiness with so much less.

Leslie liked the horses the most. She had always thought of them as pretty majestic creatures, and seeing these horses only accentuated that. They were powerful and beautiful, strong and calm all at once. She carefully ran a hand down one’s side – it was gorgeous animal, all black except for a white circle around one of his eyes.

“That’s Ben’s horse, Phantom. He used to come here every weekend when he was younger just so he could ride him around the ranch. He would spend the entire day with him. Then life got in the way, I guess,” Pedro explained, handing Leslie a carrot to feed the horse. “He’s a proud animal, a little impatient, but very loyal once you get through to him.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Leslie said, as she watched the horse chew on the carrot. “What about the others?”

“The white one, Knight, belonged to Ben’s brother. And this one right here is Pearl, Ben’s sister’s horse. She’s very gentle. Would you like to take her out for a ride?”

Leslie looked at the sand-colored horse next to Phantom. She had sweet eyes, and wasn’t as big as Phantom or Knight looked. She was a lot less intimidating. But she still wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. I’ve never ridden a horse before. Maybe it’s not a good idea.”

“You’re on a ranch, Señorita Knopf. What else are you going to do while you are here?” Pedro asked, laughing.

Leslie found that it was a very interesting question. She had no idea what she was going to do while she was there, except for lose her mind very, very slowly.

“Okay, fine, let’s try it.”

\-------------------

Ben didn’t even wait to hear the greeting on the other end to charge ahead.

“I’ve been trying to contact April all morning and I can’t reach her. What’s going on? She always picks up the phone. It’s like it’s part of her. What if she’s – ”

“Wyatt,” Captain Swanson’s voice cut him off, already sounding impatient with him. “April was here all night, and left a couple of hours ago to shower and see her husband. She’s probably getting some sleep, which she deserves, if you ask me.”

“That’s not what I said. I just want to know what’s going on there,” Ben walked all the way to the gate and looked to his sides – there was nothing but endless green and dirt roads. “I don’t like being away from the case and you know it. I could have been a lot more useful if I had stayed there, and someone else could have – ”

“You’re the best agent we have, Ben,” Ron interrupted. “I’m proud of the amazing team we have here, but you know I wouldn’t trust Knope’s safety to anyone but you. Plus, you were in desperate need of a break.”

“A break? I’m not on a break. I’m working. I have to be alert in case – ”

“In case a cow wants to eat her? Ben, you’re in the Middle of Nowhere, Minnesota. What the hell could go wrong there?” Ron chuckled dryly, which didn’t do much to help Ben’s mood. “The only thing that could potentially kill Knope there is boredom. Just relax, make sure she’s okay, and let us deal with everything here, got it? I know it’s hard for you, but you’ll thank me in the end.”

“I don’t see that happening…” Ben muttered in a monotone voice, as he turned around to face the house. His eyes widened and he gaped like a fish for a moment or two until he snapped into action. “I have to go. I’ll call back for updates later.”

“Don’t you dare call back, Wyatt – ”

Ben hung up and ran back towards the house. He could see Pedro standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and a pleased look on his face, and the absolute terror in Leslie’s eyes as she sat stiff as a pole on Pearl. Ben knew the horse was very gentle, but she was also quite easily scared. He still remembered a memorable afternoon when his sister was riding her and ended up on her butt in the mud because they came across a mouse.

“Leslie!” Ben exclaimed. He came to a stop when he was ten feet away from the horse. “Stay still, I’ll help you down.”

Pearl was pacing so slowly, the alarm in Ben’s voice sounded ridiculous.

“She’s doing just fine, Señor Ben!” Pedro said, grinning from ear to ear with pride. “Just let her learn.”

 _If she falls and breaks her neck on my watch, I will end up working as a security guard in a mall._ He approached Pearl with his arms extended toward her and making what he hoped were calming sounds.

“This is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done,” Leslie’s voice was barely above a whisper, as if afraid speaking at a normal volume would make the horse go wild. “And that’s saying something.”

“She has a great posture,” Pedro said from behind them.

Ben was shocked to see Leslie beam at that. Her back was straight as an arrow, with her legs tucked in closely against Pearl’s body.

“Just stick your butt out a little,” Pedro added, and Leslie turned towards him with an appalled look on her face.

“Excuse me?” She sounded almost scandalized.

“Show your fiancée, Señor Ben. You were always a natural!” Pedro said, nodding along to his own idea, as if it was the greatest thing he had ever thought of.

Ben wanted to glare at him, but managed to control himself. They had to keep their cover, no matter how frustrating this was. “I don’t think – ”

Pearl trotted away a few steps, heading to the small pond behind the stable. Leslie tightened her grip on the reins, looking nervous.

“Why did I think this was a good idea?” Leslie mumbled to herself.

Ben sighed and went after her. He grabbed the reins and made Pearl stay still, shushing her as he did to keep her calm. Then he placed his hands on Leslie’s waist. “I’m sorry,” he said under his breath, so Pedro wouldn’t hear. “Just like this.” He corrected the posture, sliding Leslie’s butt back a few inches.

Leslie looked down at him with wide blue eyes. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome. Do you want me to help you down?” Ben asked, and realized his hands were still on Leslie’s waist, so he removed them like they were on fire.

“Is there anything else to do here?” Leslie said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I may end up falling on my head, but I’m starting to think it’s worth taking the risk.”

Ben shook his head, a smile forming on his lips. “You’re full of surprises, Ms. Knope,” he whispered, just so Leslie could hear. Then he turned back to Pedro, who was watching them as if nothing could make him happier. “Can you get Phantom ready?”

“You’re going to give me a lesson?” Leslie asked, a smirk playing on her lips.

“It’s either that or help Pedro clean the henhouse.”

Leslie’s face couldn’t have shown more reject and disgust if she had tried. “I think I’m ready for my lesson then.”

A few minutes later, while Ben was riding Phantom right next to Pearl, talking quietly as he instructed Leslie how to get the horse to go where she wanted, his cellphone started vibrating where he had left it on the porch for safety before joining Leslie. April was finally returning his calls, but for once, Ben had forgotten all about work.

He wouldn’t admit it even to himself, but the way Leslie smiled when she got something right had a lot to do with it.


	6. Chapter 6

If there was one thing Leslie loved about Wyatt Ranch, it was the shower. The hot water never seemed to run out, as it did in her house in Indiana, and the way the spray hit her back was strong and perfect, getting rid of all the tension that had been residing in her shoulders since all of this I-saw-a-murder-and-now-the-FBI-is-hiding-me-away debacle had started.

She got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her body and stared at her own reflection in the foggy mirror. She looked tired – it was impossible not to go through something like this without feeling like every single second of the day was a reason for fatigue. Riding a horse hadn’t exactly helped either, even though it had distracted her for awhile. The day on the ranch was excruciatingly long without just sitting around the house waiting for everything to be over.

She wondered how Ann was doing. She knew her best friend had to go to work that night, and it felt weird for Leslie to be so far away. She usually checked in with Ann when she had a shift, sometimes visited the hospital if work didn’t get in the way, or at the very least called her to hear all of the horror stories of what she had encountered as a nurse that day.

Before thinking about Ann made Leslie any sadder, she toweled her hair dry, put on clean pajamas and left the bathroom, without another glance towards the mirror. She felt unmoored, like the woman returning her stare wasn’t her anymore. So much had changed in such a short time.

She went into the kitchen, which was flooded with a delicious smell coming from the oven, something warm and inviting that sent a comforting sensation through Leslie, as if homemade food could fix everything. She found Ben sitting at the table, surrounded by files and reading through them, engrossed in their contents. He had obviously run his fingers through his hair a few times, because the locks had escaped their tidy prison of hair product and returned to its natural disheveled and unkempt state. He was wearing thick-framed glasses, and he had unbuttoned his polo shirt, revealing a bit of hairy chest. This was the most casual Leslie had ever seen him, and she doubted it ever got more casual than that.

“It smells great in here,” Leslie commented, standing awkwardly by the door. 

Ben startled. He had obviously been absolutely immersed in what he was reading and hadn’t noticed Leslie was there. “Oh. Yes, I made some dinner. It should be ready in a few minutes.”

“That sounds amazing. Is there anything I can do to help?” Leslie asked, eager to feel useful.

“Let me move all this to the living room and maybe you can help me set the table?” Ben offered, standing up and grabbing the files.

Leslie helped him. “Are all of these about our case?”

“No, these are other cases I need to work on,” Ben replied. “I’ve been focused on catching this murderer, and work keeps piling up on my desk.”

“Do you specifically work on murder cases or you take any cases you can get?” Leslie was curious. The very few things she knew about the FBI were mostly from TV shows, and she had never been a fan of those either.

“I usually work on murder cases,” Ben answered. They piled the files on the couch. Leslie was dying to thumb through a few of them, but she wasn’t sure if Ben would like that. “When I first started, I was actually mostly involved in fraud cases. But then I switched to homicides.”

“Why?” Leslie asked, as they opened the kitchen cabinets to get plates and glasses.

“There was an opening on one of the teams and the agent in charge wanted me to join them. They were working a big case and needed all the agents they could get,” Ben explained, as he got the cutlery.

Leslie looked at him closely. Ben seemed way too invested in setting the forks and knives on the table, as if he didn’t want to look back at Leslie. Leslie wondered if she had screwed up with her questions – it didn’t seem like this was something Ben was comfortable talking about. She knew death was a subject most would avoid, especially for a person who investigated them for a living. 

Or he wasn’t telling the truth about _why_ he had chosen to investigate murders.

“Well, it all sounds very exciting, if you ask me,” Leslie responded, trying to make light of the situation. “My job’s pretty mundane compared to yours.”

“You’re the Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department, right? I remember you mentioned it when we had you in for questioning,” Ben commented, and he seemed relieved to be able to change the conversation towards Leslie instead of him.

“Yeah, but I’m just a lowly government employee,” Leslie said, shrugging, as she folded some napkins.

“That sounds exciting though,” Ben replied. He opened the oven to check on the food. “Are you not happy with it?”

“Are you sure you want me to answer that?” Leslie chuckled, rolling her eyes. “I’m actually in the perfect mood for a pity party.”

Ben took the casserole out of the oven and took it to the table. “Dinner’s ready. No better time for a pity party.”

Leslie smiled at him and took a seat at the table. She told Ben the same story she had told Ann before this odyssey started – how she was afraid she was wasting her life on a job that would never take her anywhere; how she didn’t want to spend the rest of her days stuck in a position with no real growth, with no one truly paying attention to her and her accomplishments and how hard she worked to serve a city who didn’t appreciate her; how she was afraid she had reached her full potential and was now stuck.

“All of this seems completely shallow and meaningless now, of course,” Leslie said, spearing a piece of chicken with her fork. “You have a whole new life perspective when you’re chased by a murderer.”

Ben gave her a sad smile from across the table. “I’m sorry everything sucks right now. I’m sure you’ll get to go back to Indiana soon, and you can figure out what to do. But maybe you can see this as some kind of second chance? Maybe you can stop playing safe where you’re at. Maybe you’re ready for bigger things. Nothing can be scarier than what you’ve been through these last couple of days, and yet… here you are.”

“Here I am,” Leslie repeated, looking at Ben as if he was a beacon of light in the darkness. “You know, Ann said something very similar to me. I think you guys are right.”

“If you’re going to be dedicating your life to something, you might as well do something you’re passionate about,” Ben conceded. He must have seen the question in Leslie’s eyes, must have felt her curiosity, her sudden need to know if Ben was passionate about his work in the FBI, because he didn’t give her enough time to ask. “Is the chicken a little dry?”

“No, everything’s amazing,” Leslie said, taking in a mouthful of food to prove her point. “I may go back to Indiana with a few extra pounds, if your cooking is always this good.”

Ben smiled at her. It was a soft, kind smile, the kind of smile that made Leslie think. This is a good man, she thought. This is a good-hearted man, who risks his life to protect people, who has opened up his family home to me, and who has gone out of his way to make sure I’m safe.

_He is such a good man. But why do I feel like he’s so broken deep down inside?_

\-------------------

Leslie couldn’t sleep. She was exhausted – had been exhausted since this whole ordeal had begun – but no matter how much she tried, sleep wouldn’t come to her. She stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, thinking. Thinking about the man that needed to be trapped in order for her to get her life back, and about what kind of life she would be returning to when that happened.

What she was going through felt like a curse – her life was being threatened, she wasn’t safe in her own home, she had to be hidden away by the FBI, and even her best friend needed protection. She wasn’t sure how long it would take for her to go back to Indiana and what she would find once she was there.

But it also felt, strangely, like a blessing. There was no point in sitting there feeling bad for herself. She could use this horrible hand she was dealt and turn it into an opportunity. She could restart her life, find a new angle, find inspiration, rethink her choices, find a new path. She could do whatever she wanted.

She thought of the conversation she had with Ben over dinner, so similar to the one she had with Ann in what felt like a lifetime ago. She thought of how insignificant everything had felt, how her life seemed to be stuck and how she didn’t know what to do to make it meaningful and worth living again.

She thought of her father. Robert Knope had only wanted one thing for his daughter: for her to be happy.

It was time to find that happiness.

Leslie turned the lamp on. The ranch was quiet, the lack of Indiana traffic too evident and foreign to be reassuring. She looked around the room, hoping to find a pen and a piece of paper. She thought of her laptop, back at her house, and wished she had it with her.

Tiptoeing, Leslie left the bedroom. The hallway was dark, the other doors closed. Ben must have gone to sleep too, and she didn’t want to wake him. She knew the poor guy was as exhausted as she was, worn down by worries and responsibilities. He deserved a good night’s sleep.

But when she arrived at the living room, the light was still on, and Agent Wyatt was lying on the couch, covered in case files, still dressed. His shoes had been carelessly discarded under the coffee table, and a pair of reading glasses was crooked on his face. He had obviously fallen asleep working.

Leslie stood by the couch and watched him for a moment. Ben was a mystery – when she looked at the man before her, Leslie had a hard time recognizing him in the happy, smiley boy in the pictures on the shelf. They looked alike, but it seemed like all the joy in that young boy had been drained. Leslie guessed it was part of being an FBI agent – how could you do your job, face the terrible things that Ben must face every day, and not lose that childish bliss?

A tiny voice in the back of Leslie’s head told her he _was_ handsome. Leslie’s eyes followed the strong line of his jaw, covered in stubble; the plump curve of his pink lips; his dark, long eyelashes; the way his hair struggled to escape the product that Ben used to tame it every day. He was _more_ than handsome…

Ben shifted in his sleep, trying to get more comfortable on the couch, and one of the case files fell on the floor. The thud, though quiet and almost nonexistent, startled Ben awake. He sat up abruptly with a gasp, his hand flying to his waist as if to look for his gun.

Leslie took a step back, surprised at the sudden movement. “Oh!”

Ben’s eyes moved to her. He blinked a few times, looking confused. “Oh. Ms. Knope. Leslie. I’m – ”

“It’s okay,” Leslie murmured with a little smile. “You fell asleep on the couch. I came looking for something to write and found you. I guess it can’t be all that comfortable.”

Ben nodded and gathered the files he had dropped. “It’s fine.” He glanced at the clock and then back at Leslie. “Having trouble sleeping?”

“A little,” Leslie shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But I was thinking… well, I thought of something and I wanted to write it down.”

Ben shuffled the papers on the coffee table until he found a few sheets of paper that he hadn’t used and a pen. He handed them to Leslie. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Leslie grinned at him. “I think I’m going to make some tea. Would you like a cup?”

With another glance at the coffee table, Ben sighed. “Sure, what the hell. I could use some tea.” He followed Leslie into the kitchen, watching her as she set the paper and pen down to grab the kettle. “What is it that you need to write down? Did you remember anything new about the case?”

“No,” Leslie replied, as she filled the kettle with water. “I just realized that if I want to find the perfect job, I’m going to have to run for it. Literally.”

Ben’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Really? Like… running for office?”

“Exactly. How hard can it be?” Leslie put the kettle on the stove and then walked to the cabinet to find the mugs. “I know what I can do. I know my strengths. I know I’d be great at it, and it’s the next logical step. I can start planning while I’m here, and take the next steps when I’m back in Pawnee.” She started opening doors, looking for the tea, not remembering where it was. She wasn’t familiar with the kitchen yet.

Ben opened a cabinet and grabbed the box of tea. “I think it’s a smart decision for you.”

“Well, even if it’s not good, it’ll make a pretty decent distraction while I’m trapped here,” Leslie said as she accepted the box. She froze, staring into Ben’s eyes. “Not that I’m not grateful. I’m so grateful, Agent Wyatt, I swear – ”

Ben made a huffing noise that could be hiding a laugh. He smiled up at Leslie. “I know you are. I know what you mean. Don’t worry about it.”

Leslie nodded awkwardly. She put the tea bags in the mugs and waited impatiently for the water to boil. She could feel Ben’s eyes on her, but she ignored him, though her skin was suddenly cold and clammy, filling with goosebumps, attacked by chills.

And not the bad kind.

“I’ll be right back,” Ben said, as Leslie poured the water in the mugs.

“But your tea is ready! It’ll get cold!” She called after him. Leslie heard a door opening and closing and Ben steps as he moved somewhere else in the house.

Leslie sat at the kitchen table, tea in one hand, paper and pen in the other, and stared at the blank page, wondering how to start. She had always been a planner – she had planned every single aspect of her life, and this would be no different. But this was so much bigger, a larger-than-life goal that if she was being honest, she _really_ wanted.

Something heavy was set on the table in front of her. Ben was back and he had brought an old typewriter with him. It was huge and covered in a thin layer of dust.

“Here,” Ben said. “Maybe writing on this will help you find some inspiration.”

Leslie blinked up at him. “Ben… it’s beautiful, but you didn’t have to go get it for me – ”

“It’s no problem. It was my grandmother’s, so it hasn’t been used in awhile, but it should be in perfect condition. Let me just get rid of that dust for you and you can get to work,” Ben moved to the counter to get something to clean it, but Leslie caught his hand, stopping him.

Ben’s hand was warm in hers. Leslie felt the sudden need to trace each finger, to follow the line of hair that started at his wrist, see where it would take her. A shiver went down her spine, and she let go, taking hold of her cup of tea, like she needed the heat it radiated.

“Thank you so much,” Leslie swallowed, voice barely above a whisper. “You didn’t have to.”

“I hope it makes you feel a little less trapped,” Ben replied, giving her a smile that made her body tingle.

It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her. That _Ben_ had done for her. And he was already doing much more for her than any other man had. 

They looked at each other, the seconds stretching into what felt like hours. Leslie cleared her throat and looked away first, internally chastising herself for acting like this. Ben cleaned the typewriter, showed her how to put the paper in it, and they tried it together to make sure it worked. Without the dust, it seemed new, like they had just gone back in time to buy one. The clicking of the keys made Leslie feel like she was in an old black and white movie.

She loved it.

Ben grabbed his tea and stood at the doorway, watching as Leslie set to work. He smiled again at her and there was that familiar tingle again. “Goodnight, Leslie.”

“Goodnight, Ben,” Leslie echoed, already lost in the world of her ideas.

As Ben walked away, Leslie began to plan.

\-------------------

The hand closed around her throat. Leslie gasped for breath, but she could feel the fingers tightening, keeping air from entering her lungs. Everything around her was dark – she couldn’t see where she was, if there was something near that could help her defend herself. She flailed her arms around, trying to catch the person who was choking her, but no matter how much she moved, she couldn’t seem to find the right angle.

A knife flashed before her face, completely out of nowhere. Her eyes watered as she stared at it in horror. It was drenched in blood, drops dripping down the blade thickly. Leslie didn’t know exactly how she knew it, but she was certain it was her own blood.

Two slimy green eyes appeared in front of her. The man was smiling. “Such pretty blue eyes…”

Leslie woke up abruptly, sitting up in bed. She was choking, just like in the dream, but it wasn’t a hand around her throat this time. It was her own terror, her own screams trying to push their way out of her lips. She covered her mouth with her trembling hands and closed her eyes tightly, hating the hot tears that slipped down her cheeks when she did so.

She reached for the bedside table and switched the light on. She couldn’t bear the heavy darkness around her. She looked down at herself, almost expecting to find a dark red stain on her shirt, but there was nothing in the slightly wrinkled fabric.

Leslie Knope wasn’t a stranger to bad dreams. She’d had them often enough when she was younger. When she was just a little girl who had recently lost her father, her nightmares had filled her with the most asphyxiating dread. That didn’t mean she had learned how to deal with them or that she had managed to get used to them. No, they still felt as paralyzing as ever. Especially now, she discovered. It was even worse than when she dreamed of blood and bruises, sudden attacks and slurs, curses and cries.

She couldn’t stand to stay in bed for another second. She needed to _move_. She needed something to remove the chilling sensation travelling through her body.

Leslie thought back to the nights her father would sit with her at the kitchen table after she’d had a nightmare. She thought of two pairs of hands wrapped around cups of tea, about the comfort of the warmth against her palms. She thought of her father’s gentle, patient voice as he promised his daughter that something better was coming, that not every day of her life would feel like a bad dream.

God, how she missed him.

She wasn’t sure how late it was, so Leslie moved quietly through the house, not wanting to wake Ben. She would just make herself a cup of tea, maybe find something to read, or anything that would take her mind off the nightmare, before she tried to get a few more hours of sleep.

But she had nothing to worry about, because apparently Agent Wyatt wasn’t the kind of man who ever slept. The light in the kitchen was on, and Leslie could hear him moving around outside, walking along the gallery. It didn’t take her long to realize Ben was on the phone, and that he had probably gone outside to keep the conversation from waking Leslie.

Leslie smiled to herself, and decided she would ask Ben if he wanted some tea too. Maybe some midnight conversation was all she needed to feel better.

“Have you figured out how he managed to get on hospital grounds unnoticed?” Ben was asking whomever was on the other side. His words made Leslie stop just as abruptly as she had woken up. “It was full of people, security checks… that was a huge risk.”

There was a pause while Ben listened to the reply. Leslie’s heart was beating so hard she was afraid it would break through her ribcage.

“Still, we need extra back up in situations like this. I’m just glad Chris is fine,” Ben sounded restless, like he couldn’t take being so far from the action. “What about Ms. Perkins? Did she have to see a doctor?”

When she heard Ann’s name, Leslie’s whole world seemed to collapse.

She had hoped they would be talking about some other case that also involved a hospital and an agent named Chris. She had hoped that being trapped in the middle of nowhere, removed from everything she knew and loved, would be enough to make sure her best friend stayed safe.

But what if that monster hurt Ann? What if one day Leslie went back to Indiana to find that Ann wasn’t there waiting for her?

 _It’s me he wants._ Her mind whirring with every possible horrific scenario. _Why am I hiding? Why am I risking Ann’s life? What the hell am I doing here?_

Leslie backed away from the kitchen, away from the conversation, away from Ben. She couldn’t think straight, but there was only one thing that was clear to her right now: she needed to get back to Ann.

Looking around wildly, Leslie’s gaze fell on the car keys by the front door. She was crossing the room and snatching them up before she even knew what she was doing.

It was a warm night, but the breeze that hit Leslie’s face when she stepped outside seemed ice-cold. It wasn’t until she stepped on the grass that she realized she was barefoot. But shoes didn’t seem important – if she went back inside to get her things, it would mean the time it would take her to get to Ann would be even longer. She couldn’t wait another second.

Leslie got into the car. Her hands were shaking so badly that it took a few tries before she managed to fit the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, the sound too loud in the quietness of the countryside. Leslie gripped the steering wheel tightly and drove towards the gate.

Behind her, she heard the front door opening, and saw Ben coming out of the house through the rearview mirror.

“Leslie! Stop!”

Leslie didn’t want to listen to him. She reached the wooden gate next to the welcoming Wyatt Ranch sign. She had no choice but to exit the car to open the gate. Her feet hurt when she stepped onto the gray broken stones that made up the path from the gate to the house. But she still didn’t care – she walked up to the gate and pulled the latch insistently, realizing she hadn’t grabbed the key for the lock.

“Leslie…” Ben’s voice was a lot closer now. She felt him stop just a few steps behind her. Leslie still didn’t turn and kept fidgeting with the latch. “Leslie, please. What are you doing?”

Leslie hated admitting defeat, but there was no way to open the gate without the key. She should have kept driving, crash straight against it, maybe it would have – but no. The wood looked sturdy, permanent, unbeatable.

Unlike her.

“What happened to Ann?” She asked, almost in a whisper. She felt as if all her strength had vanished with her hopes of getting away.

Ben was beside her now. His eyes looked even darker out here in the endless Minnesota night. They wandered over Leslie, as if searching her for injuries, for cuts and bruises, for anything wrong that he could fix. “Nothing. Your friend is okay.”

“I heard you on the phone,” Leslie admitted, finally turning to face him. She knew there were tears on her face, but for once, she didn’t care if anyone saw her break down. “What happened?”

She saw Ben swallow visibly. He seemed disquieted. “Why don’t we go back inside and we – ”

“No,” Leslie interrupted. She still held on to the latch, as if it was the only thing keeping her upright anymore. “I need to know. Tell me.”

Ben breathed out very slowly, his eyes still on Leslie. Leslie could almost feel their presence on her, their heat. “The killer got into the hospital. Her floor, more precisely.” When Leslie gasped, Ben took one more step towards her, as if wanting to comfort her. But he didn’t touch her. “Nothing happened to Ann. She was already in the parking lot and was leaving after her shift was over, didn’t even know something was wrong until it was all over. The killer attacked Chris – Agent Traeger – and then got away.”

Leslie closed her eyes, willing her heart to go back to its normal rate. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Ben replied as calmly as he could. “No one got hurt.”

“But he got away,” Leslie whispered. “He _got away_."

Ben looked like it pained him to reply. “Yes.”

Leslie let go of the gate to cover her face with her hands. She hated this. She hated every little bit of this.

Ben’s hand was suddenly on her arm, as if holding her up in case Leslie’s legs gave out. “Shh, hey. It’s fine. She’s fine…”

Leslie looked up at him. They were so close that Leslie could see every speck of gold in Ben’s eyes, even in the deep darkness of the night. “She’s all I have left, Ben. It’s just Ann, and me, and no one else. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose my best friend.”

Ben’s breath stuttered and his fingers tightened slightly on her arm. “Leslie…”

“I can’t lose Ann,” Leslie repeated, and she felt as if every one of those words were somehow seeping into Ben. It looked like they hit him.

“You won’t lose her,” Ben said. It wasn’t the first promise he’d made to her. But for some reason, Leslie still believed him. “Just… please, Leslie. Just let me keep you safe.”

Leslie felt like she was back in her nightmare. She suddenly couldn’t breathe. As she looked at Ben, watched the earnestness in his handsome face, felt the firm grip of his hand on her arm and the soft and warm caress of his breath against her own face, Leslie realized she couldn’t say no to this man.

Not when he asked like that.

She nodded very slowly. “Okay.”

Ben looked so relieved that, in other circumstances, Leslie would have laughed.

They drove the car back towards the house. Once they were inside, Ben made tea for the both of them, and they sat in silence at the kitchen table, steam rising from their mugs and the night growing older outside the window.

After a few sips, Leslie felt calmed enough to speak. “Can you tell me everything that happened, please?”

Ben launched into an explanation without even trying to convince Leslie that there was no need for her to know anything else, that the situation was already handled. He simply told Leslie everything she wanted to know without hesitation, and answered every single question she had without holding anything back.

When Ben finished talking, Leslie simply stared into the bottom of her empty mug. “I can’t do this if I don’t know what’s happening back home. I can’t be hidden here without getting any news from Ann. I’m not asking much of you. Just… if there’s anything to know, please… tell me?”

Ben didn’t say anything. He just looked into Leslie’s eyes and nodded.

Leslie sighed in relief. It wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing.

Ben retrieved his phone from his pocket. He dialed a number and waited for the call to connect. “Hey, I know it’s late, but… can you put her on the phone?”

Leslie looked at him in confusion, and accepted the phone from Ben without a word, not sure what was happening.

“Hello?”

When Leslie realized it was Ann’s voice on the other side, she almost wept. “Ann? Hi!”

“Leslie? Oh my god, are you okay?” Ann asked, as Ben subtly got up and left the kitchen to give her some privacy. “I thought we weren’t allowed to communicate. Is something wrong?”

“No,” Leslie reassured her quickly. “No, everything’s fine. But I heard you had a bit of a day. How are you?”

Ann told her what she already knew – that the killer had slipped into the hospital, nearly blinded Agent Traeger, and then got away. Leslie would have listened to her reading the dictionary or the phone book. She sounded okay. She sounded alive.

“What about you? I know you can’t tell me where you are, but tell me anything you can. Is Agent Wyatt too much of a bore?” Ann said, and she seemed as eager to keep talking as Leslie felt.

“No, he isn’t,” Leslie whispered. She closed her eyes and thought of how much Ben had grown on her. “He is pretty amazing.”

Leslie could talk to Ann forever, but they eventually had to say goodbye. Leslie didn’t want to abuse Ben’s kindness. She put the phone on the table and just sat there by herself for a few minutes, basking in the relief. Ann was okay. She had heard her voice. Maybe Leslie could get a few hours of sleep without any more nightmares tonight.

Leslie walked into the living room. Ben was sitting on the couch, flipping through a book, clearly waiting. He looked up and sent a soft smile Leslie’s way.

“Feeling better?” 

Without a word, Leslie moved towards him, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. Before Ben could even react, Leslie was holding him tightly, burying her face in the crook of his neck, her hands firmly pressed to Ben’s back. Ben stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides like he wasn’t exactly sure how to react, for what felt like eternity. But then he was hesitantly holding Leslie back, stroking her back up and down in reassuring motions.

“Thank you,” Leslie murmured into his ear, and she could have sworn she felt Ben shiver in her arms. “Thank you, Ben.”

Reluctantly, Leslie let go. She smiled at Ben one last time, and then retreated down the hallway and back to the bedroom. The ranch was as silent as ever as she slipped back into bed. This time, when she closed her eyes, no bad dreams came.


	7. Chapter 7

Life at the ranch was uneventful for the next few days. Leslie had to make an effort and learn how to relax: she had absolutely nothing to do to pass the time and it was beginning to drive her insane. She spent most of her time with the typewriter Ben had given her. She didn’t know how good what she wrote was, but it was something.

Every now and again, Leslie would glance up from what she was writing and look around for Ben. He spent most of the time reading case files, running laps around the ranch and looking dismally at his phone. There was no news of the killer, and Leslie could see the tension growing in the line of Ben’s shoulders.

As much as she hated being coped up in this house far away from everything she knew, Leslie couldn’t imagine what Ben must have been feeling, knowing his team was out there working without him, doing all they could to find this man while he was stuck here.

It felt as if they both had been removed from the world. Leslie knew why she was here – she was here because the killer was after her and the FBI wanted to keep her safe.

But she couldn’t understand why they had made Ben stay away from a case that obviously meant so much to him. Why was he being punished?

Ben dropped another case file on top of the coffee table and gave an exasperated sigh. It didn’t matter how much he read the files, if he wasn’t able to be out there in the streets looking for clues or examining evidence, it just felt like he was a kid playing at being a detective.

He stood up and stretched his arms over his head. It wasn’t time for dinner yet, so he still had time to go out for a run. Maybe that would clear his head.

Leslie walked into the living room, looking as hopelessly bored as he felt. She gave him a polite smile, a quick reflection that held no warmth. “Do you mind if I pick one of the books here to read? If I keep staring at a blank page any longer, I think I might stab myself in the eye.”

“I take it the planning isn’t going well?” Ben said as he gestured for Leslie to just browse the bookcase.

“Well, I’m mostly working on developing a campaign strategy, but it’s harder than I thought,” Leslie explained vaguely, as she ran the tip of her finger across the spines of the books on the shelf. “You know, I’m just _me_ and I don’t know the first thing about running a campaign. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, it’s something you really want, right?” Ben asked thoughtfully. “So maybe you need to figure out exactly what this candidate needs to overcome to know where she wants to go.”

Leslie turned towards him and watched him blankly for a few seconds. “Are you telling me I’m locked in a ranch house with an FBI agent who has an extensive knowledge of how to run a political campaign?”

“I don’t know about extensive knowledge. I do enjoy politics though. Always have. I actually… may have run for mayor of this town when I was younger.” Ben replied, shrugging as he grimaced.

And then it clicked.

Benjamin Wyatt. Boy Mayor. Elected at the age of eighteen. Still in high school. Small Minnesota hometown.

“Ah, Ben Wyatt! Mayor of Partridge, Minnesota at barely eighteen and still in high school! _How_ did I not put two and two together when I first saw you? I followed your campaign and I thought you were _so_ cute!” Leslie clapped her hands in excitement. “Agent Wyatt, I’m impressed.”

Ben chuckled, and shyed away by ducking his head in an attempt to hide the blush creeping up on his cheeks. “I’d say you’re easy to impress then. You’re the one who actually wants to run and wasn’t impeached, Leslie.”

“Well, you carry a gun. I’d shoot myself in the foot eight times a week if I did, so I guess we all have our strengths,” Leslie admitted sheepishly as she went back to perusing the shelves. “Still, I’m impressed. You should be warned: if we have to stay here much longer, I will eventually need to learn how to shoot one, you know... for safety’s sake after all. And who better to teach me than the best FBI agent the bureau has?”

“I’m duly terrified, thanks for the warning,” Ben said. He suddenly felt in a better mood. No one had ever heard his story and not had something negative to say in response to the mistakes he had made. But no, not Ms. Knope. She was certainly one of a kind. 

He leaned against the arm rest of the couch and watched as Leslie removed books from the shelves to take a look at them before placing them back. “Are you looking for any genre in particular?”

“Not really, I just want something that will distract me for awhile,” Leslie answered. Her hand stopped on a leather bound volume. “Oh, _Pride and Prejudice_! I was never able to resist Mr. Darcy.”

She removed the book from the shelf. It was a beautiful edition bound in blue leather, the letters on the cover in bright gold. She opened it, and immediately something fell from it, fluttering towards the floor.

“Oh, what is this? A picture?” Leslie said, as she leaned in to retrieve it. Her eyebrows rose as she stared at it. She had expected an old picture – maybe of Ben’s grandparents – but instead, she found herself staring at an adult Ben, maybe two or three years younger, with his arms around a woman. She had brown hair and green eyes, her head leaning against Ben’s shoulder.

Ben had moved closer to take a look. His breath seemed to falter.

“That’s a really nice picture,” Leslie commented, unsure what to say. “Is she your friend, or your sister?”

“That’s my ex-fiancée,” Ben replied in a careful monotone. It was obvious he was making an effort to not show any sort of emotion. “I sent this picture to my mother awhile ago. She must have put it there.”

Leslie paused, looking at the picture more intently. The spark of happiness in Ben’s eyes was impossible to miss. She had trouble believing that the man in the photograph and the man standing before her were the same. There was something so jaded about the Ben she knew. She wondered what had happened to him to change him so much.

“I see,” Leslie said, unsure if she was allowed to ask more questions. Judging from how tense Ben seemed, she guessed not. “Well, it’s, um... a nice picture.” She handed it to Ben.

He took it slowly, like he was afraid the photograph may burn him. “Yeah, it was.”

Ben disappeared into the kitchen without another word, the picture still clasped in his hand. Leslie dropped down onto the couch with the book, but she wasn’t sure she was in the mood to read anymore.

\-------------------

It had been another extremely long night. The FBI had received a tip from an anonymous source telling them they knew where the killer was. April had led a team to raid an apartment in Indianapolis, but they had found nothing. The apartment was empty. It had either been emptied out on purpose, or the killer had never been there in the first place. It didn’t matter – it was another frustrating dead end.

She rubbed her eyes as she read through her emails. There were a million things to do, but she couldn’t bring herself to do any of them. She was tired, and in desperate need of a cup of coffee. But she didn’t want to get up and get one and being pregnant kept her from really indulging anyways.

There was knock on the door and when April looked up, all her exhaustion and weariness seemed to melt away. Andy was standing at the threshold, a radiant smile on his face.

“Hey you, am I interrupting?” Andy asked.

April got up from the desk and walked towards him. “Never.” She kissed her husband, one hand on his jaw, the other on her own belly. The baby kicked, like he knew his dad was there. They smiled against each other’s lips. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I missed you. And I thought maybe you could use a cup of coffee. Half caffeine though,” Andy replied, showing her the coffee cup and bag he was holding. April almost groaned in appreciation.

“You’re the best. This is why I married you,” April said, giving him another kiss, before practically throwing herself at the coffee cup.

Andy passed it over with a laugh, and came into the office to sit at the desk. He opened the bag. “I brought you food too. I know how you are, you probably forgot to eat anything last night.” He fished in the bag for a chocolate-filled croissant and handed it over. 

She bit into it eagerly. “Oh yes, that’s the stuff.”

Andy smiled at her over the rim of his own coffee cup. “Croissant cravings again?”

“They never stop,” April practically moaned around another bite. When she swallowed, she looked up at her husband. 

“How are you? Do you think you can come home for a nap? You look tired.”

“I’m definitely leaving the office earlier today,” April said. She sat and reclined against her seat. She could have fallen asleep right there. “But we have a team meeting scheduled at noon. With Ben away, Captain Swanson is pretty much in charge of the case, and he wants a debriefing.”

“I’m sure it’ll go well. You’re bound to catch this man sooner or later, and with you on the case, I’m sure it’ll be sooner rather than later.” They simply smiled at each other for a few seconds, content with just being together. “Have you heard from Ben? I know it’s also bothering you that he’s away.”

“He calls pretty much all the time. He hates being away, and I feel like he’s mad at me because I talked to the Captain about him. But he’s my friend, and I was worried. I couldn’t let him go on like that,” April took another sip of her coffee. She could feel the miniscule amount of caffeine waking every single inch of her. “But please, let’s just not talk about anything work related right now. You look so handsome that I could just ravish you right here and right now.”

Andy laughed, an incredibly boisterous sound that seemed to explode out of him. “April! Don’t say things like that here! Anyone could walk in!”

“No one’s going to walk in. And I’m allowed to tell my husband how much I want him – ”

“April… oh, hey! Sorry for interrupting!”

They both looked at the door, April with a look that would have scared even the bravest of men, and Andy pressing a hand to his mouth, amused. Agent Jerry Gergich stood there, like a deer caught in the headlights, wishing he was anywhere but here.

“What do you want, Jerry?” April asked dryly.

“April, be nice,” Andy mumbled quietly, still looking quite entertained.

“I’m really sorry to bother you, but… um,” Agent Gergich looked around the office, anywhere but at April’s face. “It’s just that you told us to let you know if anything suspicious happened so…”

April arched an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“I think someone’s been through my things,” Jerry said. “I’m very particular about the way I keep everything. Things were out of place. It doesn’t look like anything’s missing, but someone’s definitely read my files.”

April stood up abruptly. The smile was gone from Andy’s face in a flash. “Are you sure?”

Jerry nodded. “Like I said, nothing’s missing, but I’m sure someone’s been messing with my things.”

“I want you to go through all your stuff again and make sure that nothing’s missing. And get me all the files you were working on, I want to see what kind of information they could’ve found.” April walked towards the door and peeked out of the office. “Castro! Hart! My office, please!”

Andy stood up, balled up the remains of their breakfast and put a gentle hand on April’s arm. “I’ll leave you to it. Call me when you have a chance and let me know what time you’ll be home.” He pressed a quick kiss to his wife’s lips and looked pointedly into her eyes. “Take care.”

“I always do,” April muttered, as Andy put his hand on her belly one last time, before he left his wife’s office. Agents Hart and Castro walked in, looking at her expectantly. “Someone’s been through Agent Gergich’s desk. We need to find out who did it. Castro, please go downstairs, talk to security, have them show you records of who got into the building last night. Hart, go through the security cameras footage. We have security cameras up our asses in this place, at least one’s bound to show us who was here. Report back to me as soon as you’re done.”

With a nod, both agents disappeared down the hallway to fulfill her orders. She turned towards Jerry, who was frowning at her.

“You don’t think he managed to come into the bureau, right?” Jerry asked.

April leaned against her desk, her brain working a million miles per hour. “I hope not. But it is kind of weird that we got that dead-end tip out of nowhere, and just when no one was here, someone went through your stuff.”

Agent Gergich pulled a face. “I’ll go check again. Maybe I’m mistaken.”

April blinked at him. All of her was tension and alert. “Let’s pray you are.”

\-------------------

She was back in the alley. She could see the pool of blood coming from the girl on the ground. She could smell the metallic, oxide scent of it. It filled her nostrils, making her dizzy.

“Don’t run,” that horrible voice said, too close to her ear. “Don’t run, pretty one. There’s no use. I’m going to catch you anyway.”

Leslie could feel her heart trying to beat out of her chest, it was so fast. She wanted to implore for her life, but what would be the point? You can’t reason with a person who has just killed someone without a bit of regret. You can’t ask them for mercy – they don’t know what that is.

Suddenly, a knife cut through her clothes. With a swift movement of the blade, she was naked, unprotected. She felt fingers grazing her skin from all angles, but no matter how much she tried to stop it, how she moved, she couldn’t. They were always there, probing, violating.

And then it wasn’t just fingers. The blade ran all the way down her chest, her stomach, pausing right above her hipbones. Blood started pouring out of her open cuts, but she could feel no pain. She looked down and found a heart carved into her stomach, crooked and imperfect.

Leslie woke up with a scream. This time she didn’t sit in bed and wait for her heart rate to go back to normal. She didn’t try to convince herself that it had only been a dream. She simply jumped out of bed and ran out of the bedroom. She couldn’t sit there in the dark.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She wished she could turn back time, be a little girl again, and run into her father’s bedroom to look for comfort, wake him up and ask him to hold her. She wished none of this was happening, but there was no point in wishing for the impossible.

Leslie knew she wouldn’t be able to calm down so easily. The dream had felt too real. She walked across the hallway and knocked on the other bedroom’s door. She didn’t want to bother Ben, but she just needed to know she wasn’t all alone in the world. Being isolated from everything she loved and everything she knew wasn’t helping and she needed to cling to something familiar, something safe, something that would ground her.

When she didn’t get an answer immediately, Leslie pushed the door open gently. In a normal situation, she would have turned around and gone to the kitchen to get a cup of tea instead. But now… now she just desperately needed someone.

It was dark inside the room, but the curtains in the window were open enough to let a sliver of moonlight in.

“Ben?” She called in a shaky voice. She walked inside. She realized there were two single beds in the bedroom. “Ben? I’m sorry to bother you, I just – ”

She reached the bedside table between the beds and felt for the switch to turn the lamp on. When she found it, and the room was bathed in a soft light, she felt lost. Both beds were empty.

They weren’t only empty in a way that meant that whoever slept in them hadn’t gone to sleep yet. They looked empty in that way that rooms that haven’t been used in years looked. There was a thin layer of dust on the bedside table.

She wondered if she was still trapped in the nightmare when she heard his voice.

“Leslie? Leslie, are you okay? I heard you scream. Leslie?”

“I – I’m here,” she replied, loud enough to be heard from the hallway.

Ben appeared in the doorway. He seemed confused to find her there. “What happened? What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you,” Leslie said, swallowing with difficulty as tears prickled her eyes and a lump began to form in her throat. “I thought you slept here.”

Leslie realized Ben’s eyes were stubbornly fixed on her. They didn’t glance around the room. He also didn’t come inside. “Are you okay?”

“I had a nightmare,” Leslie answered feebly. She felt her legs weakening. She could still feel the touch of those fingertips all over her, the slide of the knife against her body. When her knees buckled, she let herself fall onto one of the beds. “I can’t – he was – ”

“It’s okay,” Ben said. “You’re safe.”

Leslie felt pathetic as she hid her face in her hands and let out a strangled sob. She _was_ safe. No one was going to hurt her here. She had no reason to cry. But still… the whole ordeal suddenly felt too heavy to carry alone.

Ben’s hand held onto the door frame for a moment. His knuckles went white with the strength of it. He looked at Leslie’s shoulders, shaking miserably as she cried, and took a deep breath, before finally stepping into the room.

Leslie felt the bed dip as Ben joined her. Hesitantly, Ben’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer. Leslie allowed herself to be held, resting her head on Ben’s shoulder, grasping his shirt with her fists. She wondered how Ben managed to be so brave all the time. How did he face so many nightmares for a living?

_Maybe that’s why I never find him sleeping._

Ben was making quiet, soothing noises, his hands firmly pressed against her back. No one had ever held her so carefully and so fiercely at the same time. “It’s fine. It was just a dream.”

The longer it took for Leslie to stop crying, the more embarrassed she felt. When she managed to catch her breath, she straightened up and wiped her tears with the hem of her shirt. “I’m so sorry…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Ben assured her softly. “It’s understandable. You went through a traumatic experience. It isn’t over yet. You just need some time to put it behind you.”

“What I’m going through isn’t even as bad as what others go through,” Leslie said, shaking her head in shame. “I can’t stop thinking of that poor girl in the alley.”

“You couldn’t have done anything for her. And just because she didn’t manage to escape, it doesn’t mean you’re not going through a rough time now,” Ben said. “Don’t feel guilty for surviving, Leslie.”

Leslie looked up at him, her eyes still watery. She didn’t know what to say. Everything in Ben seemed so deeply wise and experienced. Leslie wondered how many deaths he had witnessed, how many tragic endings. How many things even more grotesque than death.

She looked away when she couldn’t bare the intensity in those eyes anymore. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for barging in here like that. I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s fine,” Ben murmured, but the tension in his words told a different story.

“No, it’s not. I assumed it was your room. I didn’t know if this was off limits or…” Leslie glanced around. There was dust on all the furniture. She saw a few picture frames, but it was impossible to see the pictures in them under all that dust and abandon. “It looks off limits.”

“This was the room me and my brother shared when we stayed here with our parents,” Ben explained, his voice completely neutral. “I just haven’t come in here in a very long time.”

“Why not?” Leslie asked, frowning slightly.

“He died.”

Leslie gasped. Maybe she should have expected that answer. Everything in the room’s state and Ben’s reluctance to be there hinted at it. But Leslie was still surprised. “Ben… I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Ben nodded. Taking a deep breath, he reached for the picture frame on the bedside table. He wiped the dirt away with his hand, revealing two joyful, smiling faces. Leslie had seen pictures of Ben’s family in the living room. She just now realized that they had disappeared after their first day in the ranch. Ben must have put them away. “That’s Henry.” He pointed at a tall boy, probably eighteen or nineteen, with beautiful blue eyes and dark hair. He was so handsome, the kind of boy who would have made Leslie swoon back in high school.

“He looked like a great guy,” Leslie commented, smiling down at the picture. “Did he… die long ago?”

“About a year ago,” Ben replied. He put the frame back on the bedside table. “Both he and my dad died the same day.”

“Oh Ben,” Leslie was breathless with grief. She couldn’t imagine what pain Ben must have been through. “That’s terrible. Was it an accident?”

“No, it was actually a raid,” Ben said. He looked at his hands, knotted together on his lap, like he couldn’t bear looking anywhere else. “They were both in the FBI. We were working on a terrible case, human trafficking. We got a tip that they had a hide out near the pier, so my dad put together a team and we went there. Someone must have alerted them that we were coming, they clearly had no time to scatter, but they did prepare for us.”

Ben was expressionless, like he didn’t want to give away what was truly going on inside of him. But Leslie could feel the tension and the pain coming in waves from him. She almost drowned in them. She wished she could say or do something. She almost stopped Ben from telling her the rest of the story, but she couldn’t. She realized it was taking a lot of effort and bravery to say these words. Leslie wondered if he had even talked about this since it happened.

“As soon as we went in, we were ambushed. It was crazy, I can barely remember what happened. It was so loud and dark, and – ” Ben shook his head. The more he talked, the more he seemed to be lost in his own words, like he was far away from the ranch. “April was next to me most of the time, but at one point I just lost her. When I finally saw her again, a guy was pointing a gun at her. I ran towards her, but I wasn’t fast enough. And then Henry was there, pushing her aside, and – ” His breathing had picked up gradually as he spoke. He was almost shaking, the memories buzzing and scratching at him. “April reacted first and shot the guy, but when I finally got to them, Henry just – he – ” His eyes filled with tears. He frowned, like he couldn’t believe it. Still, a year later, and he couldn’t believe it. “He looked at me. He said my name. And then he just died.”

“Ben…” Leslie whispered. She inched closer, unsure whether touching him was a good or bad idea.

“It wasn’t until it was all over that I found out my dad was dead too,” Ben continued, as if he couldn’t even hear Leslie. “It all probably took about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes and it just tore my family apart. Twenty minutes.”

Leslie couldn’t stop herself anymore. She put her hand on top of Ben’s, which were tangled in his lap. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know how to tell my mom,” Ben said with a bitter chuckle. “How do you tell someone half their family is gone? She always knew the risks. Sometimes she hated that we were all in the FBI. She joked that we liked worrying her, keeping her on her toes, appreciating every day we could all be together,” Ben watched Leslie’s hand as if it was something so foreign, he couldn’t understand it. “It destroyed her. She wasn’t the same again. She packed up her life and moved to California with my sister. I haven’t seen them much since the funeral. They’re both mad at me, think I should quit, do something less exciting, like become an accountant. Something that won’t mean she’ll get another call in the middle of the night – ”

“They were so brave,” Leslie whispered, and when Ben looked up at her, he squeezed her hand. “And so are you. I have never met anyone as brave as you. I know it hurts losing someone you love… but they gave their lives for a good cause, to protect others. Don’t be afraid to remember them. Honor them, Ben. They deserve that.”

“I should have been faster…”

Leslie cupped Ben’s face, made sure their eyes were locked, that he was truly listening as she echoed his earlier words. “Don’t feel guilty for surviving, Ben.”

Ben sucked in a breath, his pupils going dark, his whole body shaking. Leslie mostly moved out of instinct and reflex. She wasn’t planning to, but she kissed Ben.

It started soft, a small comfort after a painful moment. Her lips caressed Ben’s, as if hoping that would erase his wounds. But then Ben was surging forward, a hand on the back of Leslie’s neck, the other on her shoulder, kissing her like it was the only thing that kept him alive. Leslie was taken aback for a moment, but then followed, allowing herself to melt into him, tangling her fingers into Ben’s hair to bring him impossibly closer.

It was like Leslie’s body was suddenly awake after a long sleeping spell. It was thrumming, nightmare forgotten, like everything that was wrong in the world had gone away as soon as Ben’s lips touched hers. She didn’t want to stop. She _never_ wanted to stop.

Ben pulled away.

His eyes were wide, with blown pupils and his lips kiss-swollen. He looked so gorgeous that Leslie could have moaned at just the sight of him. But she stopped herself when she realized how alarmed Ben seemed.

“I…” Leslie said, standing up from the bed abruptly. “I shouldn’t have… I just wanted to – ”

“Leslie,” Ben murmured, looking up at her with those huge, mesmerizing eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. It was completely inappropriate,” Leslie retorted, doing her best to sound normal and to ignore the wild beat of her heart. “I think I should probably… you know, go back to sleep. It’s really late.”

Leslie waited, half hoping Ben would stop her, would say something to keep her there. But when he didn’t, Leslie couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. She was so embarrassed. How could she be so _stupid_?

She didn’t sleep that night. Her lips tingled with the ghost of Ben’s, and she couldn’t help feeling mortified about what the morning would bring.

\-------------------

Ben stood outside Leslie’s door, his hand pressed to the white wood, his eyes closed. He told himself it was all complicated enough. He told himself that Leslie was right, it had been inappropriate. He talked himself out of knocking a million times.

But the truth was that those few seconds had made him feel more alive than anything else in the past year.

Finally, he took a step back. He wouldn’t go chasing any impossible dreams.

He was too busy chasing nightmares.

\-------------------

April dipped the brush in the can of green paint and then furiously attacked the wall with it. There were stains of paint on her arms and pajama top, but she didn’t actually care or notice. Part of her wanted to focus on this, on painting the room for her first son. But the rest of her was just looking for an escape from all the tension that her body carried. And there were only so many hours one could spend at the gym unloading her frustrations on a sandbag or treadmill.

“April?” Andy’s sleepy voice said behind her. “What are you doing? It’s three in the morning.”

“I need to get this done. The baby’s due soon,” April replied without even turning. She still needed to assemble the furniture. Maybe she could do that tonight too…

“Are you okay?” Andy asked, coming into the room. He had a frown on his face. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”

“This is the only time I have to do this. I have to be at the office early in the morning, and we both know my weekends are nonexistent, so – ” April paused when she felt Andy’s hand on her arm. She finally turned to look at her husband, and her heart almost broke at the look of confusion and worry in his eyes. “Andy…”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened at the office today,” April spilled at last. She could never hide things from Andy for long. He had figured out April was pregnant at least two weeks before she had actually realized it. “You know, with Jerry sure someone went through his stuff. Nothing was missing. Castro checked with security at the lobby but no one suspicious got inside the night before. And Hart checked all the security footage, but he found nothing.”

“So maybe it was nothing. Maybe he just thought – ” Andy suggested, always the optimist, but April interrupted him.

“No. I don’t think that’s the case. I mean, Jerry can be an unbearable imbecile sometimes, but he’s a good guy, a good agent. I trust his instincts. He wouldn’t waste my time if he wasn’t sure,” April explained. She dropped the paintbrush and ran a hand down her tired face.

“April, please come back to bed. There’s nothing you can do now,” Andy pleaded. He sighed. “You know, you always go on and on about how Ben needs a break, but it’s not only him who had a rough year.”

“I’m fine,” April said immediately, almost a reflex.

“You could have died that night, April,” Andy exclaimed. “And you haven’t stopped to even think about that. You never stop.”

“I have work to do. And I can’t… Ben lost his father and his brother, Andy. His brother died saving me,” April said, her voice cracking. “I can’t pay Henry back for what he did. But I can try and make it up to Ben.”

“That’s a really heavy burden to carry on your shoulders,” Andy whispered. He watched his wife, but April didn’t look like she wanted to keep talking about it. “Please, come back to bed with me. You are almost never home. I want to be close to you. And I want to be close to the baby. Please?”

April was never able to say no to Andy when he was like this. She sighed and smiled softly at him, accepting the hand that Andy was already offering her. She turned the nursery light off as she went. She had time to finish painting before the baby arrived.

She even had time to catch that bastard before the baby arrived.

\-------------------

Leslie had never dreaded breakfast as much as she did that morning. She left the bedroom almost reluctantly, and walked down the hallway to the kitchen slowly, like a wild animal ready to bolt at the first sign of human life.

The smell of coffee was the only thing that persuaded her not to just curl up in bed and hide for the rest of the day. Her stomach growled at the thought of a good dose of caffeine. And, she thought, she couldn’t hide from Ben forever.

Ben was at the kitchen sink, washing a few dishes. He didn’t even turn when Leslie walked in. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee, if you want a cup. We ran out of eggs, but you can have some bacon or toast. I’ll ask Pedro to do a supermarket run later.”

As Leslie poured herself a cup of coffee, she studied Ben’s back. There was always tension in his muscles, so it was hard to say if he was still upset about the night before. “Thanks, I’m not hungry.”

Ben dried his hands and finally turned. Leslie studied his eyes, but she couldn’t see anything there. She wasn’t sure what kind of sign she was looking for, but Ben was giving out none. “Alright. I’ll go take a shower.”

“Okay.”

And that was it. Leslie sat at the kitchen table and groaned. Things had at least been nice until yesterday. They had been getting along, joking, talking about books and politics. Maybe even flirting. But now… Leslie hoped, more than ever, that the FBI would catch the killer, because she wasn’t sure how much longer she and Ben could remain under the same roof.

Leslie had felt isolated before, knowing she wasn’t allowed to see her best friend, to go to work, to just cross the street and go wherever she wanted to go. But it was nothing compared to what she felt now.

Ben was avoiding her. There was no other way to describe it. They didn’t even share meals anymore. Ben disappeared, going outside to work out or help Pedro around the ranch, and they barely even exchanged a word or two during the day.

Bitterness started growing steady inside of Leslie. Why did she have to be so stupid? Why hadn’t she thought about what she was doing before she kissed Ben?

And the worst part was that Leslie actually had an answer to those questions: she wanted Ben and she didn’t know what to do about it.

She had gone through a series of decent boyfriends, but no one who could make her knees weak, who would make her heart rate race wildly when they walked into a room. She had felt love before, but she hadn’t known this need, this passion that threatened to explode out of her veins. Yes, it had been awhile since she had last dated anyone, but that had been a personal choice: she had been invested in her job, had wanted to focus on her career, but she didn’t realize how lonely she had felt until now, when loneliness was all she could feel.

What was she supposed to do? She still had no idea how long she would have to stay in this house. What if this was all she had left, for the rest of her life? If the killer was never caught, would she ever be allowed to go back to her old life?

Or would Ben just get sick of babysitting her and pass her on to another agent, another location, another kind of isolation?

She wondered if maybe it wasn’t better to try to talk to Ben about what had happened. She wasn’t sure what she could say, but maybe if she apologized again… but how would she even get the chance to do that, if Ben didn’t stay in a room with her long enough to utter a single word?

\-------------------

The afternoon sun was hot on his back. Ben’s shirt was sticking to his skin with sweat. He thought about going inside and getting a glass of water, but as he glanced towards the house, he saw Leslie sitting at the kitchen table, staring miserably at the typewriter.

He decided to stay outside.

He grabbed a straw bale, his muscles straining with the effort, and carried it inside the stable, where Pedro was refilling the horses’ troughs with water.

“Where do you want this, Pedro?”

The man turned towards him and pointed at the wall next to him. “Right here is fine. Thank you for your help, Señor Ben. An old man like me… I can’t carry the heavy stuff like I used to.”

Ben smiled at him as he set the straw bale down. “I’m happy to help. And I told you, it’s just Ben. We’ve known each other forever. There’s no need for formality.”

“I may have seen you run around this ranch butt-naked when you were a little boy, but I still work for you, you know?” Pedro pointed out with a chuckle.

Ben rolled his eyes. “You work for my mother. She’s the actual owner of the ranch. I just drop by for occasional visits.”

“Not often enough, if you ask me,” Pedro said, following Ben outside as he went to get another straw bale. “Big cities… they wear you down. You look like you need some good Minnesota air.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Ben shrugged, and carried the next bale. “It’s just hard to find time to escape Indiana for a while. There’s always so much to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, you work, work, work all day long,” Pedro waved his hand, shaking his head in disapproval. “When do you have fun? La vida es corta, Señor Ben.”

Ben piled up the second straw bale in the stable and turned back to Pedro with a little smirk on his face. “You’re one to talk. I don’t remember seeing you do anything but work. You live in the ranch, you spend your day with the animals, you never take breaks. I don’t even remember seeing you go on vacation.”

“Ah, but when you love something… it’s not work,” Pedro grinned at him, and Ben had the feeling he was being slowly manipulated into a trap. “I have lived here all my life, raised my family here. I love every strand of grass, every breeze, every drop of water. When you love something, it’s _not_ work. You take care of it, just because that’s what you do with the things you love.”

Ben crossed his arms over his chest and studied him. “You’re going somewhere with this, aren’t you?”

Pedro pointed at the house with a meaningful look on his face. “You and Señorita Leslie. You’re having trouble, yes?”

Ben made sure to school his face into something unreadable. He had a lot of practice with that, thanks to interrogating criminals and being friends with April. The woman could even extract secrets from statues. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You have spent the last two days with me, instead of being with your fiancée. I may have been handsome back in the day, but I don’t believe for a second you don’t prefer being with Leslie instead.”

Pedro could be annoyingly sassy for an old man.

When Ben remained silent, and simply leaned towards the dog, who was taking a nap by the stable’s entrance, Pedro sighed. Ben pretended not to hear and simply scratched behind the dog’s ears, who wagged her tail in content.

“Look, Ben,” Pedro remarked, and Ben couldn’t help smiling at the deliberate lack of formality. “I say this because I care about you just like if you were one of my own boys. But if you love someone… you don’t waste time on silly arguments. Don’t avoid her instead of talking things out. You and me know… they’re not going to be here forever. I would give my right arm – even my life – to see Rosa again, for just five more minutes. I’m sure you can think of a few persons you would like to see again.”

Ben swallowed. There was a heavy knot in his throat that he didn’t seem able to get rid of. _Henry. My dad._

“Whatever happened, I’m sure you can find a solution. Together.”

Ben nodded slowly, thoughtfully. This was a conversation he probably would have loved having with his own father or brother. He thought of when he was actually engaged, how easy it had seemed. He had never felt the need to go ask his family for relationship advice. And now that he needed it… there was no one to turn to.

“Would you risk everything to be with someone, even if you aren’t sure it can work out?” Ben asked, unable to stop himself. “Do you think that even the possibility of that person being the one is worth the shot?”

_She’s my assignment. I can’t risk this. I can’t. It could put her in danger. It could cloud my judgement. It could ruin everything. You’re just bored, you need to go back to work._

_Then why did I feel the happiest I’ve felt in a long time when we kissed?_

“Ben,” Pedro said, a soft, understanding look on his face. “If love isn’t worth risking it all for, then what is?”

Pedro walked out of the stable, the dog fast at his heels, and Ben was left alone, feeling dizzy with doubts.

\-------------------

The apartment in Indianapolis had been empty for days. Watchful, slimy green eyes barely looked away from the door, as if afraid to miss the man he had been watching out for if he even blinked.

He liked coming here. He liked watching the tension, the exhaustion, the frustration dripping from Agent Wyatt. Sometimes he fantasized about following him to the door, surprising him as he fished the keys out of his pockets. Would he look surprised, afraid? Would he even have time to reach for his gun before the knife went through his stomach?

But it wasn’t as much fun without him here. He thought maybe Agent Wyatt had gone stay with the woman with the pretty blue eyes, but his apartment was empty too. He had a nice apartment. Everything had been in its place, smiling faces staring back from family pictures. His sheets had smelled so sweet too…

He wanted to find him. He _needed_ to find him.

He had no doubt that wherever Wyatt was, Pretty Woman would be there too. He was done waiting. It was time to hunt.

He smiled as he turned around to walk away from the apartment.

_I’m coming for you, Leslie Knope. And I know exactly where to start looking for you._

A beautiful woman with long brown hair passed him on the sidewalk, looking both ways before hurrying to cross the street, like she was late getting somewhere. She looked distracted, and even from the distance, he could tell she had big, blue eyes.

_Ah, but first... let’s create the perfect distraction._

He crossed the street after her.


	8. Chapter 8

Ann was having incredibly pleasant dreams. She was at the beach, and everything around her could be eaten – it was like some sort of sea-themed Hansel and Gretel. The sand was made of cookie dough, the umbrellas were giant candy, and the sea was Dr. Pepper. She grabbed a handful of sand and put it in her mouth. It was gooey and delicious.

Chris was under one of the candy umbrellas, lying on a beach towel made of marshmallows. Ann wondered if the red bikini she was wearing could be eaten too.

Just as Chris smiled and gestured for her to come closer, there was a loud noise in her room and Ann woke up abruptly, too curtly to remember why there was a woman screaming at her – half in English, half in Spanish – to get up.

“I – what the hell?” Ann asked, sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes that were still half closed, fresh from slumber.

“I said – ” April exclaimed impatiently. “ – that I need to get to the bureau.”

“Um, okay? Then I guess I’ll see you later? Unless Chris is coming back?” Ann mumbled, her mouth feeling pasty and dry.

April groaned in exasperation. “What part of having to be under an FBI agent’s watch 24/7 don’t you get? Get up, get dressed. You’re coming with me.”

Ann blinked at her, but when she looked like she was ready to simply drag her to the street in her underwear, she held up a placating hand. “Fine. Jeez, I’m coming. Are you always this difficult in the middle of the night?”

“Only when I have to be away from my husband while pregnant for two days because an incompetent agent can’t do his damn job,” April replied with a roll of her eyes and a breathy huff.

“Hey, Chris is not incompetent!” Ann exclaimed, offended. When April regarded her with a raised eyebrow, she gaped like a fish out of the water as she thought of what to say. In the end, she simply muttered angrily: “Weren’t you in a hurry?”

“Yes, I’ll meet you at the door in five minutes.”

She left, banging the door behind her a little too forcefully. It was completely unnecessary, in Ann’s opinion. When she glanced at the clock on her bedside table and saw that it was only four in the morning, she grabbed her pillow and threw it at the closed door.

Nevertheless, she got out of bed and pulled some pants on. She had no idea what was going on, but it didn’t seem wise to get on April’s bad side.

She missed how easy things had been with Chris. She couldn’t help wondering if he would ever come back.

\-------------------

Captain Swanson walked into the conference room and the buzz of conversation died out as soon as he stepped in. He stood at the end of the long table and looked around the room at the agents, most of who seemed too somnolent to function properly. However, one look from Ron Swanson had the same effect as very strong espresso. They straightened up in their seats as they waited for their leader to address them.

“Most of you know why we’re meeting here right now,” Ron began, his voice loud and clear. He turned and pointed at the screen behind him with a remote control. The image of a crime scene appeared in it. “Rebecca Collins, twenty-three years old. She was meeting her friends for drinks in a bar in Indianapolis tonight, but she never made it there. A woman found her when she went out to walk her dog.”

“Are there any leads on the crime scene?” April asked, unable to control herself. She needed to know more.

“Agents Traeger, Castro, Phillips, Hart and Lowell were the first to arrive at the scene. We have no new leads, no eye witnesses,” Captain Swanson explained. He clicked a button, and a closer photograph of the body appeared on the screen. There was a bloody red heart cut into the woman’s abdomen. Her lifeless eyes were open, looking up at nothing. “This continues to escalate. We cannot allow there to be any more victims. We already have Leslie Knope in protection, her friend is accompanied by an agent at all times… how is it that we have absolutely no positive results? Agent Gergich – ” Ron turned abruptly to the older man sitting by the middle of the table, who jumped at being spoken to seemingly out of nowhere. “Have you checked the data bases? Has his identikit shown any matches whatsoever?”

“Nothing,” Jerry replied, wishing he could say the opposite. “It’s like he wasn’t even born. We have no registry of him anywhere.”

“His picture has been published in several newspapers and shown in pretty much every television news channel in Indiana, but all we’ve got were wrong leads,” Chris said, always eager to participate. “People have been calling non-stop in a panic, claiming they’ve seen him, but it never turns out to be true.”

Captain Swanson sighed. “Alright, well then we have to – ”

“I believe he was here, in the bureau,” April said so suddenly that everyone turned to look at her in disbelief. “I have no proof and that’s why I never brought it up before, but – ”

“What makes you say this?” Captain Swanson asked, clearly scandalized that this had happened without him knowing. “Agent Ludgate, if you think something as dangerous as that is going on in my own office, then you have to speak up.”

“I’m sorry,” April said, but as usual she didn’t sound like she meant it. She was used to playing by her own rules. “I did handle the situation when it arose, and since there haven’t been any developments since then…” April shrugged. “Agent Gergich told me he believed someone had been through his stuff.”

Jerry raised his hands, as in self-defense. “I said I wasn’t sure. I triple checked everything and nothing was missing. I could have been wrong.”

“I don’t think he was wrong,” April retorted matter-of-factly, and she made a face, caught off guard that – for once – she actually agreed with Jerry. “But like I said, I can’t prove anything. Agent Castro checked downstairs with security, and Agent Hart went through the security camera’s footage. There was nothing suspicious.”

Both agents nodded to show she was telling the truth. Captain Swanson pinched the bridge of his nose, as if a headache was suddenly developing.

“We have to be more careful from now on. I don’t want to think this man was right here under our noses and we didn’t catch him,” Ron said firmly. “Now, we need a new plan, because clearly nothing we’re doing is working, and this is unacceptable. So, who wants to bring some ideas to the table?”

No one seemed too desperate to be the first to talk.

They were all completely lost, unsure how to handle this. Chris and April shared a quick glance. If Ben had been there, he would have proposed ten new strategies, all thoroughly planned and well thought out. It wasn’t the same without him here. He was a fierce team leader, and each and every one in this office trusted him without hesitation. It was difficult to fill that empty space.

“Okay…” April said, after exchanging one more look with Chris. They both got up. “Do we have a map with all the attacks? Can we determine a particular area? Where did this one happen?”

Agent Gergich was already spreading a large Indiana map on the table. Ron came over and pointed at a street in Indianapolis. “It was here.”

Chris frowned. “That’s _literally_ about two blocks from Ben’s apartment.”

“He’s never attacked any victim in that particular neighborhood before,” April pointed out, leaning over the map to take a better look. “He’s always stuck to the general Indianapolis area, more urban rather than suburban. The first one was near the park, here. There was another one on Georgia Street, then the one near Massachusetts Avenue… and the one by Knope’s apartment in Pawnee – ”

“What are you saying?” Captain Swanson asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What April is saying is that he’s changed his pattern. Again,” Chris replied. “First, he changed it when Ms. Knope saw him, and went after her. He had never done that before. And now he went all the way to Ben’s neck of the woods to kill this girl. But why _this_ girl in particular?”

“I’m more interested in knowing why he was so close to Ben’s apartment,” April murmured. She mumbled a few words no one understood, her brain clearly working too fast to even explain to the rest of the agents what she was trying to get at.

“Don’t you think that could be a coincidence?” Hart asked with shrug of his shoulders. “The third attack was about three blocks from my place. I don’t think there’s a connection there.”

“No, but… Ben’s in charge. I don’t know…” April sighed. “I feel like there’s something there. I just need some time to figure out what.”

“We don’t have much time. We need to do something in the meantime,” Captain Swanson said. “It looked like you two were going somewhere with this. What was it?”

Chris and April looked at each other once more, before Chris said: “Bait.”

“We send undercover female agents to the areas where he usually strikes, and we wait to see if he bites,” April sat back on her chair and looked around the conference room. “It’s not the most brilliant idea we’ve ever had, but let’s face it… we have nothing. He’s proven to be pretty impossible to catch. Let’s try a new angle.”

Captain Swanson kept glancing over the map. “That could lead us nowhere, but at least it’s an idea. Anyone else feels like sharing with the class?”

The meeting continued like that for at least another hour. By the time they began shuffling out of the conference room, they were feeling quite discouraged. Never had a case seemed so important and yet so grueling and arduous.

Ann was sitting at one of the desks in the main floor, spinning her chair around in absolute boredom. She stopped when she saw the meeting was over and stood up. Both April and Chris approached her.

“How did it go?” Ann asked anxiously.

“It could have been a lot better,” April replied, clearly in a mood.

Chris tried for a reassuring smile, even though he felt so uselessly nervous. “Well, the good news is that if he’s still out and about in Indiana, Leslie is safe. He’s not going after her.”

“Do you think maybe he forgot about Leslie altogether?” Ann said, her eyes lighting up with hope.

Chris wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but he guessed it couldn’t hurt to spread some optimism. “It looks like it. Let’s hope he did.”

April watched them silently for a few seconds and then groaned. “Look, it’s actually nauseating watching you two, so I’m going to go get a ginger ale to settle my stomach and get to work. Traeger, you are more than welcome to resume your assignment and take Perkins back to her place. I am done with that.”

Chris gaped for a moment, and then sighed. “Of course. My errands are done, after all.”

“Right, errands,” April repeated, rolling her eyes. “Have fun with that.”

She gave Ann an awfully strong pat on the back, and then left them alone.

“Ready to go?” Chris asked with a confident smile.

Ann looked so elated, April would have said the sun was shining out of his ass. Chris was glad he hadn’t seen her.

“I’m ready.”

Chris wasn’t sure he was.

\-------------------

She was back in that phone booth. It was so dark outside that she couldn’t see the killer lurking around it, but she knew – without a single doubt – that he was there. She tried to grab the phone to call the police, but as soon as she touched it, it began to melt in her hand.

“No, no, no, please,” Leslie pleaded desperately. “Please don’t hurt me.”

There was a flash of light, like lightning during a storm, and she realized she wasn’t alone inside the booth. 

The dead girl’s body was right next to her, so close that she could feel her still warm blood as it poured freely from her.

And then the pounding started.

Leslie covered her ears and closed her eyes tightly, waiting for it to stop. But the killer wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave her alone – he continued to pound on the booth’s wall, trying to break in, trying to get to her.

How long would it hold? How long until it was _her_ blood dripping on the ground?

The pounding grew so intense that she could feel it vibrating inside of her own head. She had no way to escape this. She was going to die.

She screamed so loud, it felt as if her insides were being torn apart.

“Leslie!”

She opened her eyes. She wasn’t in that blood drenched phone booth. She was still in Minnesota, sitting up in bed, and completely soaked in her own sweat. But the pounding continued, and it took a few seconds for her to realize it wasn’t coming from her dream.

It was the bedroom door, and Ben was calling her name from the other side.

“Leslie! I’m coming in!” He announced. And then the door was open, and Ben stood there, bathed by the light coming from the hallway, dressed in sweatpants and a soft blue shirt. “Hey. Hey, are you okay?”

Leslie allowed herself a moment to try to get her breathing back to normal. It wasn’t easy. If she blinked, she could still see the girl’s body, the gleam of the knife as it moved towards her; she could almost feel the killer’s breath on her skin.

She shivered and covered her face with her hands, forcing herself to calm down by taking several slow and deep breaths. It was stupid to feel like this. She was safe. She had managed to escape.

She felt the bed dip and looked up, finding Ben carefully sitting next to her, but still keeping a respectful and careful distance. It was too dark to see every detail of his face, but Leslie found the worry in his eyes, the slight burrow of his eyebrows as he stared at her. Ben’s hand was resting on the bedspread not far from her knee, like he was considering reaching out and touching Leslie to offer his comfort, but clearly unsure if it would be welcomed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Leslie spoke quietly, embarrassed. She was a grown woman and should have been able to handle herself.

“It’s fine, I wasn’t sleeping,” Ben replied, offering a small smile. “I know it’s a stupid question, but are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Leslie replied, shaking her head. Then she sighed, and said: “Yes. Yes, of course I’m okay. I’m just an idiot. I should get this under control, I should – ”

“It’s not your fault, Leslie,” Ben said kindly. “It’s understandable, after what you went through. You’ve had your entire life suddenly shaken up, changed. Please don’t feel bad about this.”

Leslie opened her mouth to answer, but then promptly closed it. She had suddenly realized how close Ben was, the closest he’d been in a couple of days. Since the kiss, Ben had kept his distance, like even being in the same room was too much. She wondered if Ben felt bad for her, pitied her. It stung to think like that, but she had no idea why else he would be here right now, after avoiding her so carefully since that night.

Ben cleared his throat. Apparently, Leslie wasn’t the only one who suddenly perceived how awkward the air had seemed to become between them. “If you’re okay, then I should let you go back to sleep – ”

“I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.” 

It was still dark outside, the moon shone through the curtains in the window. Ben stood up. “Well, then how about some coffee? It’ll be morning soon anyway.”

Leslie still didn’t know why Ben wasn’t avoiding her anymore, but she was so grateful that she could have cried in relief. “Sure.”

Ben gave her another small smile. “Great. I’ll go make a fresh pot, just come join me when you’re ready.”

Leslie turned on the light as Ben closed the door behind him. She was still drenched in sweat, and she felt disgusting. She got out of bed and grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a grey t-shirt before she headed into the bathroom for a quick shower.

By the time she entered the kitchen, Ben was standing next to the coffee maker, leaning against the counter and completely lost in thought, his eyes scanning the scenery out the window. There seemed to be something different about him – he still looked as tired as he usually did, and considering how many sleepless nights he’d had since they had arrived at the ranch, Leslie wasn’t surprised. But, oddly, he seemed a little more at peace, like some of the tension that had been constantly residing in his shoulders had melted away.

Leslie didn’t understand, but she also didn’t question it.

“There you are,” Ben said, and he grinned at her. He grabbed a couple of mugs from the cabinet and reached for the pot. “Right on time.”

Once she had her cup of coffee in her hands – was there anything more comforting than the warmth of a coffee cup between her hands? – she followed Ben outside to the gallery. They sat down on the white chairs and looked at the still night sky splattered with stars. Leslie may have been a city woman who missed the sound of traffic and the lights and everything about the hustle and bustle, but she had to admit that Wyatt Ranch was absolutely breathtaking.

She watched as Ben took a sip of coffee. The ranch wasn’t the only breathtaking thing she could see.

Leslie looked away. There was no need to go down that path again.

“Have you heard from Ann and Agent Traeger again?”

“No, but that’s actually good news,” Ben replied. “It means they are safe.”

Leslie nodded. She wanted to talk to Ann again, but she wasn’t sure if Ben would allow it. The FBI had strict rules, and Leslie didn’t want to get Ben into trouble by making him break them.

“Did you and Ann grow up together?” Ben asked, pulling Leslie from her own thoughts. “I mean, I noticed how close you are, how you said she was all you have left, and – ”

“We met a few years ago at a town hall meeting,” Leslie explained. “We’ve been through so much together, and she is truly the best friend I could ever ask for,” Ben was looking at her, like he was inviting her to tell him more, so Leslie sipped her coffee for a moment before she continued. “Ann is always there for me when I need her. I lost my father when I was ten. My mom and I aren’t that close and Ann doesn’t see her family much. It was important for us to have a family of some kind, so I guess that we just… gravitated towards each other and found each other.” Leslie shrugged. “It’s been kind of magical, actually.”

“It sounds magical,” Ben agreed with a smile.

“I know my father loved my mother, that they meant everything to each other, and my mom was never really the same after he died. Because of that, we’ve never been all that close. He and I had a very special bond and I miss him every day, now more than ever. He’s basically my guardian angel,” Leslie ran her finger around the mug’s edge, looking at the dark liquid swirling inside. “I was never a spiritual girl, I don’t believe in those things, but… I don’t know, I guess it’s a nice thought. Especially after almost getting murdered. ”

“Sometimes the thought is enough to make you feel better. You don’t have to believe in everything, but you need some comfort. You can’t just close the doors to every explanation, every possibility,” Ben said, his gaze fixed on some point near the gate. “When my dad and Henry died, I struggled a lot with the matter of the afterlife. My mom started going to church a lot, and that’s where she found comfort. I’m not like her, I’m more logic oriented, I need physical proof of everything, but… sometimes I wish I believed.”

“Sometimes I wish I believed too,” Leslie whispered, and they looked at each other.

There was something charged in that look, like they were trying to look straight into each other’s souls, trying to read every secret, every memory. Leslie felt herself growing warm, felt the sudden racing of her heart, and had to look away.

“I’m so sorry, Leslie,” Ben said, the implication clear in his voice, and he instinctively reached a hand towards her. His fingers enveloped Leslie’s, squeezed them briefly in comfort, and then let go. Leslie followed the entire movement with her eyes, and couldn’t help but shiver when Ben’s touch lingered a little longer before letting go completely.

Leslie sighed. She remembered standing next to her mother at his funeral, thinking how she would never love someone as deeply as her mother and father had loved each other. She had dated, and she had even been in love, but it had never felt the way she knew it was supposed to. 

“Thank you. It was – it wasn’t easy. It’s never easy to lose your family,” Leslie managed to choke out, a lump forming in her throat at the thought of the love her mother and father had shared.

“No,” Ben looked down at his cup of coffee. “It’s not.”

“Do you ever – ” Leslie cut herself off, not sure if she was overstepping or not. But then Ben looked at her, and he seemed so open, like there was nothing Leslie could say that he couldn’t take, that Leslie decided it was worth the risk. “You said your mom is mad at you because you’re still working for the FBI. Do you ever think about quitting?”

“I can’t,” Ben replied, not even hesitating for a second. “I understand her, I really do. I could be anything else in the world, but I chose to be an FBI agent, and… you know, sometimes this job means you die. It’s part of it. It’s not fun or nice or perfect, but it’s just the way it is. I could be a pizza delivery guy or a doctor or an architect or a teacher, but this is what I choose to be, every single day. It’s what I am. It’s _who_ I am. And I’m not going to lie, it’s exhausting sometimes. It’s frustrating. In other jobs, if you make a mistake, you may get fired or suspended, but here… you make a mistake and you die. I understand her fear, but I can’t give up because of it. FBI agents can die on the job, but we save lives. I can’t imagine walking away from that.”

Leslie’s heart constricted in her chest. “You’re so – ”

“Don’t say I’m brave,” Ben cut her off softly, waving away the impending compliment. “It’s not about bravery. It’s about doing the right thing.” He took a sip of coffee, before he said: “The day my dad and Henry died, we saved twenty four people. Who am I to play it safe when there are people out there who depend on me?”

“It sounds like an extremely difficult life,” Leslie commented, watching Ben with an unreadable look. “Maybe even lonely.”

“It is,” Ben nodded slowly. “But only because I haven’t learned how to have it all yet.”

Leslie wasn’t sure what to say. Ben seemed suddenly distracted by the first rays of sunlight that had started caressing the horizon. Leslie watched as well, how the light gradually bathed the earth before them, and the sky started to become clearer, beautifully painted in strips of blue and purple pink skies. Her hand still tingled with the memory of Ben’s touch. She wondered what it meant.

Leslie tried to remember how long it had been since the last time she had seen a sunrise. She couldn’t think of a single morning that felt as special or important as this one. It was her first sunrise in Minnesota, and it was also her first sunrise with someone who made her feel like she understood what her father and mother had felt.

She wondered if that should have scared her, but now – in this beautiful gallery with a new day just beginning – she felt at peace.

Ben wasn’t sure how long they were sitting there together, without saying a word, but he reveled in the feeling of contentment. There was something about Leslie that made the rest of the world disappear, like nothing could touch him, like he was suddenly in a bubble where everything was wonderful.

He decided they could just stay out here in the gallery forever, so that feeling wouldn’t have to end.

He was about to offer Leslie another cup of coffee when his phone began ringing. He fished it out of his pocket, and frowned when he saw it was April calling. It was still early, even early for someone as hard-working as April to already be at the office.

He saw Leslie sitting up straight, reacting to the worry written on her own face as he accepted the call.

“April,” Ben said in greeting.

“Oh good, you’re up,” she said on the other end, and he could already perceive the tension in her voice. “I was afraid you’d be asleep, though knowing you, you have spent the past couple of weeks pacing around the ranch worrying about – ”

“April, what’s wrong?” Ben interrupted. When April rambled, things were serious.

She sighed, and her exhaustion was almost palpable. “He did it again, Ben. He killed another girl last night.”

There was a bitter taste in Ben’s mouth. It didn’t take long for him to recognize it as the taste of failure and disappointment. What the hell was he doing hiding in his family’s ranch while his team was out there trying to catch this bastard? He couldn’t keep sitting on his ass.

“Chris and I think – ” April paused, probably considering if it was wise to give Ben more information when he couldn’t be more involved in the case. “It was just a few blocks from your apartment. He’s never operated in that neighborhood before. No one else thinks there’s a connection, but – ”

“You two think he’s looking for me now? Why would he – ”

“I don’t know, and I hope I’m wrong. I just… I thought you needed to know,” April said, genuine concern lilting her voice.

Ben leaned against the balustrade and closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry I’m not there. I should be with you, helping you.”

“I’m not calling to make you feel bad about not being here, Wyatt. I’m calling because I know you don’t like to be left out. Captain Swanson doesn’t even know I’m calling you, so don’t get me into trouble.” He could hear the exasperation in her voice. He missed her like crazy. “You’re exactly where you need to be.”

Ben looked over his shoulder. Leslie was sitting on the edge of her seat, watching him and waiting for news. Her face was vulnerable, her blue eyes so wide Ben could have fallen into them. Her hands were tangled on her lap, showing her unyielding anxiety. He wanted to hold her, to wrap her up in his arms, tell her everything would be okay and never let her go. 

He was exactly where he needed to be. Maybe he wasn’t running around the streets of Indiana trying to catch the killer, but what he was doing was even more important than that. He was protecting something – someone – that really mattered.

_When you love something, it’s not work. You take care of it, just because that’s what you do with the things you love._

Ben felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He had no idea what was going to happen next, but he did know one thing: saving Leslie Knope’s life was the most important mission he would ever have.


	9. Chapter 9

After Ben told Leslie everything April had said, it seemed as if the day had gone cold. Leslie sat in the gallery, her arms around herself and looked out at the distance. She was silent and still, but Ben could see a million thoughts etched into her eyes. Pools of blue filled with the heavy burden of knowing another girl had been murdered and they were both powerless to stop it.

“That poor girl,” Leslie said at last, tears pricking at her eyes. 

“Well, April did point out one positive about this,” Ben said, leaning against the balustrade as he continued studying Leslie. Leslie arched an eyebrow in question. “If he is still in Indiana and he’s back to his usual targets, it means he may have given up on you.”

He didn’t mention what April had said about the area the murder had taken place in. Leslie didn’t need to know about how close he’d been to Ben’s apartment, and what he might have been searching for.

“How am I supposed to feel better?” Leslie sighed, a lone tear now trickling down her cheek. “That girl is still dead.”

“I’m sorry, Leslie,” Ben said as he ran a hand through his dark hair, loose and unkempt. He sat down again, and leaned closer to Leslie. “April said Ann was at the bureau. She’s okay. She was going back home with Chris soon.”

The corners of Leslie’s mouth tugged upwards. She knew Ben was trying to cheer her up. “I’m glad she’s safe. That’s all I care about right now.”

“I know,” Ben said softly. He took a deep breath. “Look, Leslie – ”

“Buenos días!” A voice said, startling them both. They looked up and found Pedro walking towards them, the shepherd dog trailing behind him, her tail wagging happily. “Early birds. What are you doing up?”

“Just enjoying the fresh air,” Ben replied. “Good morning to you too, Pedro.”

“Well, I’m happy to see you two together,” Pedro said, not bothering to be subtle about it. “I was just coming to tell you that I will be going into town today. I’m visiting my son.”

“That’s fantastic,” Ben smiled at him. “Tell Samuel I say hi.”

“I will, Señor Ben. Do you need me to pick up anything for you while I’m gone?”

“No, we’re okay, I think,” Ben shook his head, and glanced at Leslie. “Unless you need anything?”

“You should take her into town, have dinner at a restaurant, walk around a little,” Pedro interrupted. “What kind of romantic vacation is this? Treat your fiancée right, Señor Ben.”

Leslie bit her lip to keep from laughing.

Ben was so red he was afraid his head would set on fire. “We like it here just fine, thank you.”

Pedro looked disapproving. “Ni siquiera lo lleva a cenar. Debería darle vergüenza, Señor Ben.”

“Pedro, you know my Spanish is not good enough to understand all of that,” Ben said, rolling his eyes.

“Not my problem,” Pedro said, and Leslie had to work hard to stifle her laugh. Pedro really was sassy when he was in the mood for it. “I’m going now. You two have fun. Bella, stay,” he told the dog, who obediently sat down next to Ben.

They watched the old man walk to his old truck, and didn’t say a word until he was driving down the dirt road and lost from their view on the winding dirt road.

“I love that man,” Leslie said, letting out her laugh. “He’s not afraid to speak his mind, huh?”

“Never was,” Ben said fondly, scratching behind Bella’s ears. “Would you like some breakfast? I’m starving.”

“I’ll make the waffles, you make more coffee?” Leslie said, as she stood up, and Ben had to put all of his energy into stopping himself from reaching out for her, stroking her hair, pressing his lips to her jaw–

Instead, he just followed her back into the house.

After breakfast, Leslie settled down at the kitchen table with the typewriter and Ben went outside to check on the animals and feed them in Pedro’s absence. Neither said anything, but something seemed to have shifted between them that morning, and they needed time and space to figure it out.

Leslie was struck by inspiration. She didn’t pause to truly think things through – instead, she typed as fast as her fingers allowed her to, pouring everything she was feeling onto the blank page before her. She had no idea if it was anything decent, but for now, what truly mattered was to get it all out.

Her conversation with Ben out in the gallery swirled around her head. She remembered his smile, the touch of his fingers, so gentle and tender, and sweet just like Ben. He had opened up to her, and this time he had done it willingly, not because Leslie had unknowingly stepped past his boundaries. But why? Why had Ben decided to talk to her so candidly? Why had he shared his story and his memories with Leslie, after being so distant the past few days?

What had changed?

Maybe Ben had realized that it was too hard to live together on the ranch ignoring each other. Maybe he had grown too lonely, and had decided it was better to reach for Leslie.

Or maybe… just maybe…

No. Leslie couldn’t go there. Her life was already too complicated to allow herself to fall in love with Ben. Agent Wyatt. The man her life depended on.

Her fingers stopped on the keyboard and she once again looked at the page. Her life had become so incredibly extraordinary that she wondered if she should have been writing about that instead. But no, she needed the comfort of losing herself in her planning, finding a resolution to pursuing her dream. She had no idea how to fix her own life, not now, not when everything seemed to be hanging by a thread.

She had nightmares. She wasn’t allowed to go home. She couldn’t see her best friend. She was having feelings she couldn’t act on.

There wouldn’t be a happy ending to her story.

\-------------------

Ben hid away in the stable. Feeding the horses, making sure they had enough water and brushing their manes gave him a perfect excuse to stay away from the house. He told himself there was nothing unusual about the way his heart was beating, so fast it seemed ready to gallop out of his chest.

There was something about Leslie, more than something about her. It was everything about her. 

Oh, Ben had known love before. He had been a lucky man who had known many types of love: the kind of love you can only get from a wonderful family; love from faithful and fierce friendships; real world-turning romantic love, the kind that had made him get down on his knee and ask his girlfriend to marry him. And it was so premature to call what Leslie made him feel love, but if it wasn’t it, then it was getting so dangerously close. With every conversation they shared, with every new piece of herself that Leslie decided to give to Ben, with the way her blue eyes looked into his like there wasn’t anything else that mattered–

Too dangerously close.

Ben had never needed to draw the line between his professional life and his personal life before. He had always known the limits, and he was proud to say he had never toed the line. He knew the risks of getting involved with someone he worked with – whether it was a fellow agent or someone else involved in one of his cases. He had always been sensible.

But Leslie made him want to do crazy things. She made him want to forget the outside world, never go back to Indiana, stop worrying about all the atrocities that happened in the world every single day: he couldn’t catch every murderer, he couldn’t stop people from hurting, he couldn’t make everyone’s lives better by just snapping his fingers. It was a cruel world out there and he had learned that the hard way. He had seen things he wished he could unsee. So what if the killer was still out there? Even if they caught him, there would be more. But he could close his eyes and defy reality, stay here with Leslie. Maybe, just maybe, if he had read the signs right–

Maybe Leslie wouldn’t mind staying here with him.

They could be safe. Together and safe. To Ben, right now, that sounded like the best kind of paradise.

He leaned against the stable wall, and looked down at Bella, who looked back at him as if seriously questioning his sanity.

“I know,” Ben murmured to the dog. “I am completely out of my mind. I shouldn’t even be thinking about this, it’s so – ”

Unprofessional. Unreal. Impossible. He thought of a million adjectives, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe any of them. Because a part of him, one that he had buried down deep inside of him in the past months, craved it. He could imagine himself with Leslie – it was so, so easy to imagine it that it scared him, leaving him breathless – and he was so certain that the fire would burn so beautifully between them. The chemistry was already there, they just needed to ignite the sparks.

Ben banged his head against the stable wall, as if trying to force some sense back into himself.

“It’s just the isolation,” he said, and Bella tilted her head at him. “We’re alone together, with nothing to distract us but each other. I’m sure Leslie wouldn’t even glance twice at me if she was safe, back in Indiana, and we were just strangers on the street. Right?”

The dog, of course, didn’t reply. She just started chasing her own tail, and Ben groaned in frustration.

He left the stable. The sky was turning grey, threatening clouds gathering above the ranch and covering the sun. He could see through the kitchen window as he walked to the hen house. Leslie was sitting at the kitchen table, her fingers typing at the speed of light. Her profile was elegant, sharp, like she had been carved out of the most precious material in the world. She was beautiful, and Ben knew it wasn’t a product of the isolation: he would have been blinded by Leslie anywhere.

“No,” he told himself. “Stop it. You’ve just been on your own for too long. Don’t do this. Don’t make things worse, don’t – ”

_If love isn’t worth risking it all for, then what is?_

“Damn you, Pedro,” Ben muttered to himself, and turned his back to the house so he wouldn’t see Leslie anymore.

Still, his heart kept beating out of control, as if it had been powered just by the sight of her.

Ben did his best to ignore it.

Leslie looked up from the typewriter when Ben walked into the kitchen. She held his gaze for a few seconds longer than normal before either of them spoke.

“Hey,” Leslie said at last with a smile. She gestured towards the fridge. “Are you hungry? Maybe I can make some sandwiches or something. We kind of skipped lunch.”

“It looks like it’s going to rain soon, so I was actually going to go for a run before that happens,” Ben replied. “But you can go ahead and eat if you want.”

“Oh, no, I’m not that hungry,” Leslie shrugged and stood up, stretching her arms above her head. Ben did his best not to stare at the sliver of skin that was suddenly visible as her shirt rode up. “Would you mind if I join you? If I keep sitting here without doing anything, I might just lose it.”

Ben forced himself to remove his eyes from Leslie’s stomach and willed them to travel all the way up to her face instead. “Um, sure. I’ll go get changed into my work out clothes. Meet you by the door in five?”

“That sounds perfect,” Leslie said with a bright smile.

When they met again, Ben was wearing a ratty FBI shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants that did wonders to highlight the roundness of his ass, and Leslie was wearing yoga pants, so tight that they left nothing to the imagination. Ben had to be incredibly strong to keep himself from staring as they went out the door. Leslie, walking behind him, tried but failed. Agent Ben Wyatt was one hell of a piece of art.

It was true, the sky had grown grey outside. The clouds looked heavy, like they would collapse and fall upon the house any minute now. Leslie’s eyes stayed up, watching for any signs of rain, as she followed Ben, slowly picking up pace.

It was difficult to keep up with Ben at first. Leslie was athletic, she was in shape, and her body was used to being pushed to its very limits. But it had been a few weeks since her last workout, and her muscles were already feeling it. She could tell Ben slowed down as not to leave her behind, and she appreciated it.

Ben was fine for the first ten minutes. He enjoyed the breeze on his face, and the smell of imminent rain always put him in a great mood. But once those weren’t enough to keep his mind occupied anymore, he realized all he could hear was the sound Leslie’s breathing. The more they ran, the more she panted, and Ben didn’t expect it to send a pang of arousal through him. It was just breathing, what the hell was wrong with him? And then he made the mistake of glancing at Leslie to see if she needed to stop or run a little slower, and found a drop of sweat slowly making its way down Leslie’s neck and into the collar of her shirt and down to–

Running had been a terrible idea.

Ben stopped suddenly. He wasn’t tired – he was used to running longer distances – but he felt as if he would suffocate if he kept running. He doubled in half and settled his palms on his thighs, taking deep breaths.

“Are you okay?” Leslie asked, confused by Ben’s sudden struggle. “Do you need water or – ”

“I’m fine, just – ” _Control yourself. What are you? A teenager?_ “I just need a second.” _Decomposing corpses. Roadkill. Bad breath. That time I chased that guy into a sewer and I had to shower ten times to get the smell off._ “Okay, let’s go.”

“Are you sure?” Leslie tilted her head as she regarded him. “You seem a little off.”

Ben straightened up, and was about to reply, when there was a loud thunder crack that made both of them jump. Immediately after, it seemed as if the sky had suddenly opened up, and a heavy amount of rain began pouring on them. Leslie shrieked and covered her head, which was pointless because she was soaked in a matter of seconds.

“Let’s go back inside!” Leslie exclaimed, having to raise her voice to make herself heard.

Ben nodded and turned back towards the house. They ran as fast as they could, the rain clouding their vision. Leslie almost slipped, and Ben quickly reached out for her, holding her hand to keep her upright. Leslie’s fingers twined with his without a word, and they kept running like that, hands linked between them.

Ben was grateful for the loud storm, because he was sure Leslie would have heard the wild beating of his heart otherwise.

By the time Ben pushed the door open to slip inside, Leslie was laughing. It was a shocking sound – since they had arrived at the ranch, the general mood hadn’t allowed much laughter. But now it was coming out of her like the dam had broken and Ben just stared at her, fascinated by the sound.

Leslie didn’t even know why she was laughing. She just knew she suddenly felt lighter than she had felt in past few days. It was like the storm had washed away her doubts and fears. It wasn’t until she stopped laughing to catch her breath that she realized she was still holding onto Ben’s hand.

“Oh… I’m sorry, I – ”

“Leslie, I – ” Ben began, his voice soft and shy, like he was scared to break the spell that had fallen on them.

But before he could say anything, there was a loud pop and the lights in the house went out. They broke away merely out of surprise, as Ben turned around.

“Fuck,” Ben cursed, and grabbed his cellphone from the coffee table to illuminate his path to the kitchen. It was so dark outside thanks to the storm that it seemed that the evening had decided to arrive early. “I should have some candles in the kitchen. Help me light them up? Hopefully the power will come back soon,” Ben glanced at the screen of his phone. “Looks like the phone service is down too.”

“Does this happen often?” Leslie asked, as she followed him into the kitchen.

“Well, I haven’t come here in a while, but I remember it happening a few times when I was younger,” Ben explained as he opened a few cabinets. “Yes, here they are.”

Leslie held Ben’s cellphone up to provide some light while Ben looked for the matches and candle holders. “Do we have enough candles? Should we save some for later?” She asked, and before Ben could reply, she added: “Careful with the wax – ”

“Shit,” Ben uttered, as hot wax leaked on his finger.

“Are you okay? Let me see,” Leslie said, moving closer. “You’re pretty clumsy for a FBI agent,” she teased with a crooked smile. 

“Shut up,” Ben chuckled, as Leslie cradled his hand between her own to take a look. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Maybe you should run some cold water on it,” Leslie suggested, and when she looked up, they both realized how close they were again.

It was like they were on a rollercoaster: they knew what was coming, and the adrenaline was high. There was a bubbling in their stomachs, anticipation becoming liquid inside of them and running through their veins. Leslie must have felt it burst first, because without looking away from Ben’s eyes, she put her lips to Ben’s hand and kissed the spot where the wax had landed, lips lingering for far too long. She was looking up at him through her eyelashes, and even in the dark, Ben could see the blue of her eyes. It was unnerving.

Ben’s breath stuttered in his chest. It was like his whole body was short circuiting just from that simple touch. And that was enough to break the rest of his barriers.

He surged forward, his hands finding purchase on the sides of Leslie’s face and neck, drawing her closer as he pressed their lips together. Leslie was grabbing him by the shirt, fists tight on his chest, and she wasn’t holding back or hesitating now either.

Ben felt desperate. It was as if all his frustration and loneliness from the past year was suddenly being poured into the kiss. His lips closed around Leslie’s bottom one, sucking it into his mouth, grazing his teeth across it, eliciting the softest, most delicious moan from Leslie.

“Ben – ”

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Ben murmured, allowing his lips to roam along Leslie’s jaw and down the column of her neck. Everything about her was exquisite. He was finally here – with her – and fuck, he didn’t want her to tell him to stop.

“Don’t you dare stop,” Leslie said fiercely, reading his mind, and buried her fingers into Ben’s wet hair, urging him to go on.

Ben licked the drops of water and sweat from her skin almost greedily. “You know this is crazy, right?”

“I like crazy. I live for crazy,” Leslie groaned, throwing her head back to give Ben better access. “You drive me crazy. So let’s be crazy together.”

“I think I can do that,” Ben whispered, as he ran the tip of his tongue down Leslie’s neck, who shivered in response.

“I know what I want,” Leslie replied, her eyes fluttering close.

To her dismay, those words made Ben pull away. But when she looked at him, she found nothing but the purest, most ardent desire in his eyes.

“What do you want, Leslie?” Ben asked, his lips already swollen from kissing.

“This. You,” Leslie answered, shaking her head, her hands moving over Ben’s shirt frantically, as if unsure about whether she was allowed to remove it or not. “I know this is insane, and that we should stop but… god, I don’t want to.”

It was Leslie who moved forward now, capturing Ben’s mouth in a searing kiss. The storm seemed to rattle the house, but neither of them noticed. They had forgotten about the power outage and the storm. They had even forgotten about the threat that had brought them there in the first place. Nothing else existed in that ranch anymore, except them.

Ben had forgotten how consuming the fire of passion could be. With every kiss, he burned a little brighter, pulled Leslie closer, tasted the sweetness of her mouth, the salty of her skin, and the sensuality of her every sigh, her every move. Leslie was like velvet in his arms, soft and pliant, molding herself against Ben’s body like she wanted to become one with him.

Ben felt his legs give a little, so he directed Leslie to the first available spot where he could find support. He dropped down on a kitchen chair and guided Leslie to sit on his lap, her long legs straddling him. He could feel Leslie was already wet through the thin layer of her yoga pants, and for a moment, Ben thought he was about to lose his mind. This woman, this gorgeous, fearless, kind woman wanted _him_.

“Your clothes are all wet,” Leslie breathed out, as she peppered Ben’s jawline with quick kisses. “You should take them off before you get a cold.”

Ben groaned as Leslie latched onto his throat and began sucking lightly there. “So you want me to take off my clothes just because you don’t want me to get sick?”

“I’m a decent human being,” Leslie replied, her fingers already toying with the hem of Ben’s wet shirt. “Plus, I may or may not want to kiss every inch of your skin.”

Ben threw his head back. “Leslie. You can’t just say things like that.”

“Yes, I can. Watch me,” Leslie shrugged, tugging on the shirt to get it off. Ben obliged, raising his arms above his head. Leslie discarded the shirt on the floor, her hands falling on Ben’s chest. “Correction, I may or may not want to kiss and _bite_ every inch of your skin.”

Ben tried not to think about how long it had been since the last time he had done this. Long enough to make him worry about this being over way too quickly. With the way Leslie was talking and moving, he wasn’t sure if he could hold back. He wanted to tear Leslie’s clothes off of her body and touch every inch of her. He wanted to press her against a wall and kiss her breathless, move against her until pleasure made them explode. He wanted to take her to bed and have his way with her, show her with every piece of him exactly how he felt about her–

Ben moaned and shut his eyes tightly. He needed to slow down or he would truly come embarrassingly fast. “Leslie – ”

“Yes?” Leslie asked breathlessly, busy sucking the sensitive spot behind Ben’s ear as she slowly started rocking on his lap.

But Ben couldn’t remember what he was about to say. Instead, he reached for Leslie’s soaked shirt and tugged on it until Leslie raised her arms to let him remove it. It was mere seconds before Leslie had discarded her bra as well. 

Pressing their chests together without any kind of barrier between them threatened to send Ben right over the edge. But he swallowed, took a deep breath and looked into Leslie’s eyes, trying to ground himself.

“You look worried,” Leslie murmured, her thumbs tracing circles around Ben’s hips. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” It was hard focusing when Leslie was doing that. Everything was difficult when Leslie was so close to him. Ben just wanted to let himself go, forget everything and surrender to those feelings. “Is it okay if I do this?” He asked, as his hands moved to the waistband of Leslie’s yoga pants.

Leslie groaned, raising her hips immediately. “Yes. Please.”

They fumbled with each other’s pants, clumsily attempting to remove them while not breaking the heat between them. But nothing could make the heat between them disappear. It had been simmering for the past few days, waiting for them to finally let it burst, explode, grow. And now it was inextinguishable.

There was no going back.

They were naked, pressed together, already breathing roughly and close to the edge. Ben was suddenly afraid to touch her – Leslie looked so perfect, so ethereal, he was scared the vision would shatter before his eyes, that this would all be a dream. But then Leslie was kissing him again, her tongue asking for permission to enter his mouth, and Ben was lost, completely lost to the sensations, the pleasure and the closeness.

As Leslie’s tongue teased his, Ben moved one finger, then two inside of her, making Leslie gasp and rock against him. It was amazing to feel her wet and ready for him like this, to know Leslie wanted it as much as he did.

“Like this?” Ben asked in a whisper, just as the house shook with another bolt of thunder.

“Yes,” Leslie couldn’t stop her whimper, her hands going to Ben’s shoulders as if looking for support. “God, Ben, it feels so good.”

Ben stroked a little faster, circling her clit with his thumb to push her further and make the glide easier. He loved the desperate little moans that escaped from Leslie’s lips, the way she moved against him as if she couldn’t get enough. Ben wished they had condoms – using his hands, his mouth – wouldn’t be enough. He needed more. He needed everything.

The chair creaked under them as they both began to thrust against the other, eager for more. Ben wasn’t sure where to look at: at Leslie’s face, an incredibly erotic view, with her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her brows furrowed in intense pleasure? Or down at his own hand, where his fingers were working her, so different from each other and yet fitting so well, it was like they were meant to be pressed together? Ben wondered what it would like to feel her in his mouth, what sounds Leslie would make as he licked and sucked and fingered and drew her to bursting–

It was too much. Ben felt himself begin to shudder with the vibrations of his orgasm. It hit him like a freight train: it seemed to wake every single inch of his body, which had been dormant the past few months. His vision went white, and the fingers of his hand loosened of their own accord. He felt Leslie taking over, stroking herself faster, trying to get there with him. His orgasm was painted with the sounds of Leslie’s harsh breathing, with the sharpness of her nails on his shoulder.

Leslie came suddenly with a loud cry. Just the sight would have sent Ben over the edge again if he hadn’t been spent already. He watched as Leslie’s pleasure hit her, wave after wave, until she was soft and plaint against him and her breathing evened out.

“Okay?” Ben asked in a low voice, hoping not to break the spell. His fingers buried in Leslie’s hair, making her purr like a happy kitten.

“Not okay,” Leslie said. Ben startled, his bliss starting to fade. But then Leslie smiled and leaned closer for one more kiss. “Perfect.”

The storm was relentless outside, but neither of them seemed to care.

\-------------------

As usual, April was one of the last people to leave the office that day. Andy had come to pick her up and they were going to have dinner at their favorite restaurant, relax, pretend there wasn’t a murderer on the loose, and live like a normal couple, for a change.

April was so happy to see Andy waiting outside on the sidewalk, always radiant, always able to melt her ice cold heart. How had she gotten so lucky?

They kissed in greeting, and April didn’t want to let go. What if they just spent the next few hours standing in the middle of an Indiana sidewalk kissing? She would be perfectly happy with that.

Andy laughed against her lips. “We’re going to lose our reservation!”

April sighed, and reached into her pocket for her phone to check the time and reassure her husband that they still had plenty of time to get there. “We’re fine. And we could always order take out and make out on the couch instead.”

“We do that all the time. I want to go to Malnati’s and eat all the breadsticks with that delicious dipping sauce that – ” Andy paused as April started frantically checking every pocket in her purse. “What’s wrong?”

“Ugh, I think I left my phone upstairs,” April said.

“Can’t you just leave it there until the morning?” Andy asked, a little hopefully. April was rarely without her phone. It was like a marriage with three spouses, and one of them was electronic.

“You know I can’t do that, babe,” April said sadly. She was aware of how much she depended on the damn device, and how it upset Andy sometimes. “What if Ben calls?”

“Fine. Go get it, I’ll wait here,” Andy gave her one more kiss and pushed her back towards the doors.

“Don’t you want to come with me?”

“If I go with you, you’ll find some file or whatever to be distracted with. This way, you’ll have to come back out right away. You wouldn’t leave your husband waiting alone in the streets for long, right?”

April chuckled. “You know me well. I’ll be right back.”

The elevator wasn’t as slow at this time as it was in the middle of the day with hundreds of agents coming and going. April enjoyed a moment of solitude and calm, and thought about her husband, and how lucky she had been to find him.

It didn’t last long. She knew something was wrong just as soon as the elevator doors opened on her floor.

She didn’t know what it was. But she could feel the tension growing in her, that sensation of wrongness taking over. She put her hand on the gun at her side, unclipping the holster to get better access.

As she moved farther into the bureau, she realized there was someone else there. And it shocked her to realize they were in her office.

April approached very slowly, making sure to walk from an angle where they couldn’t see her coming. Just as she was about to burst through the door, she heard someone talking, and to her very horror, discovered that she recognized that voice.

“Look, I’ve already told you. I just know it’s in Minnesota, okay? I heard it in passing a few times, I don’t have the address. Yeah, it should be around that area but I don’t – yes, I’m looking, but there’s nothing here – ”

April walked into her office with her gun held firmly in her hand, and pointing at the man currently searching through the files on her desk. “Is there anything I can help you with, Agent Hart?”

Hart startled and dropped his cellphone. He paled. Clearly he hadn’t believed he would get caught. “April, I – ”

“I assume there’s a good reason why you are in _my_ office when no one else is in the bureau,” April said, her voice firm and her eyes fixed on him. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t like it one bit. “Who were you talking to?”

“No one,” Agent Hart said too quickly. He shook his head. “I mean… Agent Castro. We were talking about the case.”

“Pick up your phone, and give it to me,” April demanded, her eyebrow raised in a challenge. “Let’s talk to Castro then.”

Agent Hart hesitated for a moment, then moved as if to pick up the phone, but instead stepped on it hard enough to break it. April bared her teeth and made sure the grip on her gun was strong enough in case a confrontation occurred.

“Who were you talking to, Mike? If you make me ask you again, I’ll put a bullet in your leg and go call the Captain.”

Hart reached for his own gun and pointed it at April, but even though he was fast, she was faster. She knocked the gun out of his hand and kicked it under the desk, out of reach.

“Now you’re pissing me off and making me lose my dinner reservation with my husband,” April snarled. “You’d better talk or I’ll put so many holes in you, I’ll use you to strain my pasta.”

Agent Hart knew her well. They had been on Ben’s team together since the beginning. He knew how vicious, how unstoppable April was. She wasn’t someone anyone could mess up with. And by how worried he looked, he seemed to realize he had no way out now.

“Who were you talking to?” She asked, as her finger slipped to the trigger.

“My brother!” Agent Hart exclaimed, recoiling towards the wall. “I was talking to my brother.”

“Your brother?” April was so surprised she almost forgot to keep the gun up. “Who is your brother and why were you talking about Minnesota?”

“He wants the address to Ben’s ranch,” Hart said, and every fiber in April’s body grew numb.

“Why would he want that?” April knew the answer, but she didn’t want it to be true.

“Because he’s after Knope. He – ”

“He is the killer. Your brother is the killer.”

Agent Hart swallowed with difficulty. “Yes.”

“That’s how he always escaped, how he left no trails. You were helping him, weren’t you?” April was so furious, she could have shot him right there. How had they been so _stupid_?

“Please, I know you won’t understand, but… he’s sick. I never meant for so many people to get hurt. I was just trying to protect him,” Agent Hart held his hands up as if pleading with her, and April used the opportunity to get a pair of handcuffs from her desk and swiftly put them on him.

“By letting him kill all those women? By allowing him to escape from the FBI, to still be out there hurting even more people?” April seethed. She pushed him onto her desk chair. “You filthy piece of shit. You never checked that security footage, did you? You didn’t have to. You were the one who went through Jerry’s stuff.”

“I’m not proud of what I did,” Agent Hart said. “I really do love being an FBI agent. But I love my brother more.”

April began to pace around the office. She was so enraged that she was scared she would actually shoot him in the face and end this once and for all. But there were so many things she still needed to understand.

“Why do you say he’s sick?” 

“Because he is. He was diagnosed with psychosis and schizophrenia when he was a kid. My mother didn’t know how to deal with it, so she wasn’t around a lot, and it was just him and me. I did my best, but I was also a kid, I didn’t know how to – I just love him. He’s my brother.” There were tears in Hart’s eyes, but April wasn’t moved. No matter how tragic his story was, nothing justified what the killer had done. “He was in love with a girl in his class when he was fifteen. She had blue eyes and blonde hair. There was nothing else he would talk about. His world revolved around her. And then he asked her out and she made fun of him in front of the entire school. He – he didn’t recover from that. He sees that girl in every woman with blue eyes and blonde hair. I’ve tried stopping him, but – ”

“The heart is not a random drawing,” April said suddenly, as the pieces fell into place. “It’s a signature. It’s a word play with your last name. Heart, Hart. The cocky son of a bitch – ”

“I told him to stop doing that. I told him to stop everything, but… he just couldn’t control himself.”

There was a sound from outside the office, and April turned around just in time to see Andy walking in.

“April, I knew you’d get distracted,” He looked around the office and paused. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Andy, do me a favor and call Captain Swanson,” April said, her eyes fixed on Hart. “Tell him to come right away.”

“But…” Andy looked at Hart with his eyes open wide. “What – Mike – ”

“Please, babe, just do as I say,” April said, her voice a lot softer. It hardened as she talked to Hart once again. “Where is your brother now?”

Hart looked even more nervous. “He’s – you won’t be able to stop him.”

“Just tell me where the hell he is!”

“He’s in Minnesota,” Hart replied. “He's going after Knope. And Ben.”

For the first time in her life, April was suddenly paralyzed with the most absolute crippling fear.


	10. Chapter 10

The conversation cut off abruptly. Vincent Hart looked down at his cellphone. The call was still connected, but he couldn’t hear his brother anymore. He hoped he hadn’t got caught – it would be a disappointment if he did. But even if his brother was out of luck, he wasn’t. By the time the FBI finished interrogating him, Vincent hoped to be done with what he had come so far to do.

Leslie Knope had to be near. He could almost smell her fear.

It was incredibly inconvenient not to have an actual address. He had stopped in an old bar to shelter from the rain and talk to his brother. Vincent was now sitting in a corner, sipping a beer and watching the soccer game on the television. A few patrons had gathered at the counter to watch and discuss it, but he couldn’t care less. Team sports had never attracted him. After all, there wasn’t anything as thrilling as hunting.

He weighed his options. Maybe he could try contacting his brother again later, or he could start asking questions around town. That might raise suspicion among the neighbors, but it was worth the shot. He hadn’t come all the way to this godforsaken town to leave empty handed. It didn’t matter how hard it was, he would find her.

The door of the bar opened, letting in the rambunctious sound of the storm. An old man walked in, half soaked, and wiped his feet on the dirty mat before heading towards the counter.

“Pedro!” The bartender exclaimed, grinned at the man. “Braving the storm?”

“Just trying to get home after visiting my son,” the old man replied, taking a seat at the bar. “It looks like I’ll have to wait it out though.”

“What’s new at old Wyatt Ranch?” The bartender asked, making Vincent sit up straight.

“Not much. Though Ben is home for a visit with his fiancée. Lovely woman, that Leslie,” Pedro said, smiling fondly. “Haven’t seen Ben that happy in a long time. Se lo merece.”

“Tell Ben to come have a beer with us before he goes back to Indiana, will you?” The bartender said, and Pedro nodded, as his eyes drifted towards the soccer game. “Can I get you anything?”

As Pedro ordered some food, Vincent looked down at his drink and smiled wickedly. Oh, he definitely wasn’t out of luck yet.

\-------------------

After a much needed shower in which they had stayed too long under the hot water spray, Leslie and Ben had found their way into bed. With their bodies sated and their hearts content, they lay together, Leslie with her head on Ben’s chest, listening to the reassuring beating of his heart mixed with the unrelenting storm outside.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so peaceful.

Ben was playing with her hair, like he couldn’t stop touching her in even the smallest of ways. He had to be close to her, and Leslie felt intoxicated by the scent of his skin, the tenderness of his touch, the rhythm of his breathing. Everything about this moment was perfect, and she wished she could make it last forever.

When she had first met Ben, she would have never imagined that under that serious exterior, she could find a man like this. Sure, Ben was definitely sexy when the occasion granted it, but right now–

If this wasn’t love, then Leslie didn’t know what could be.

Ben suddenly snorted, bringing Leslie out of her reverie.

Leslie looked up and found Ben smirking at the ceiling. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ben said, and when Leslie nudged him, he sighed. “I was just trying to imagine what April would say if she could see me now.”

“Well, I’m kind of glad she can’t see us, because there are parts of me on display I have absolutely no intention of showing her,” Leslie teased. One of Ben’s hands slowly moved down to cup her bare ass. “Yes, that’s one of those parts, thank you for helping me illustrate my point.”

“My pleasure,” Ben said, giving it a firm squeeze before letting go. She liked this Ben best of all.

Leslie laughed, and then looked at him again, sobering slightly. “Are you worried you’re going to get in trouble for this?”

“It’s not the most professional thing I have ever done, but I was actually thinking about how unbearably smug she’s going to be. She has like a sixth sense when it comes to sex. She’ll know before I even walk into the room,” Ben explained, and since he sounded amused, Leslie decided not to worry too much. “She’s tried to set me up with women a few times in the past. Let me tell you, the women she knows are terrifying.”

Leslie could believe that without even needing examples. She imagined April meant well, but she was definitely abrasive. She wondered what her husband was like. And that made her think about something else she didn’t know.

Ben was watching her intently. He nudged her with a shoulder. “Hey. You’re thinking about my fiancée, aren’t you?”

Leslie bit her lip. “How did you know?”

“I guess it’s surprising you haven’t asked questions about her yet,” Ben admitted. 

“I was just scared I would overstep or… I don’t know. I didn’t want to upset you,” Leslie answered, though it was something that intrigued her. 

“We’re not together anymore, if that’s what bothers you, although I think I mentioned that before. We’re definitely not cheating on her or doing anything we shouldn’t be doing. We broke up months ago.”

Leslie was embarrassed by how relieved she felt. “Oh, I see.” She waited a second. “Can I ask you what happened?”

“Leslie,” Ben leaned on his elbow and looked down at her with a dulcet smile on his face. “Please don’t be afraid to want to know things about me. I think that after what we just did, you’re more than allowed to ask whatever you want.”

Leslie really hoped her cheeks weren’t reddening. She hated blushing. And Ben… well, Ben had a habit of making her blush. “Okay then. What happened between you guys?”

Ben got comfortable against the pillows and tugged her a little closer. “After what happened with my dad and Henry… I guess I just wasn’t the best fiancé. I did love her, I wouldn’t have proposed if I hadn’t loved her. But… I think that love sort of faded away. I was numb. I was spent, and tired, and confused, and angry… I started pulling away. It’s not like I wanted to do it, it wasn’t something I chose to do. But it felt like nothing truly mattered anymore. It wasn’t her fault, she deserved better. She tried to be there for me, but I kept pushing her away. I didn’t really give her much of an option and in the end, she got sick of me rejecting her, and broke things off.”

Leslie frowned. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

“Don’t be. I mean, I was surprised when she did it, although I don’t know what I was expecting, the poor girl had a right to break up with me after I pretty much ignored her for three months. But then I realized… you know, I did love her. It was real between us. But if when things go wrong, you don’t feel like leaning on that person, letting them comfort you, is it really the kind of love that makes you want to be with someone forever?” Ben kept his eyes up on the ceiling, his fingers idly tracing patterns on Leslie’s shoulder. “I don’t know. I think I loved her, and she loved me, but we weren’t meant to be. It was love, but it wasn’t strong enough.”

Leslie dropped a kiss on the center of Ben’s chest. “I’m sorry. You must have felt so lonely.”

“Yeah, but it was my fault,” Ben gave her a small smile marked by sadness. “I just need to learn to let people in.”

“Maybe when you feel the kind of love that lasts forever you won’t even have to learn,” Leslie observed, biting her lip as she realized what that sounded like.

Ben just pressed her closer and kissed the top of her head. “Maybe you’re right.”

Leslie felt her heart picking up pace. Oh, the possibilities. What if she was that love that allowed Ben to stop pushing people away? What if she could dedicate the rest of her life to making sure Ben never had to go through anything else by himself?

It was too soon to be thinking about a future like that with Ben. She was getting ahead of herself. No matter what the last few hours had been like, she still didn’t know how serious Ben was about her. It could only be a way to pass the time until they were allowed to go home. It could be more. It could be everything. But right now, Leslie didn’t know that.

Instead of worrying, she shifted until she was on top of Ben. Ben’s breathing stuttered as their bodies rubbed together with the movement. Leslie smirked at him sensually.

“Since you said I can ask you all the questions I want…” Leslie said, leaning closer so her lips were almost pressed against Ben’s. “I have something to ask you.”

“Yes?” Ben whispered, his pupils growing dark as he looked at her.

“Would you mind too terribly if I sucked you off right now?” Leslie asked innocently.

Ben groaned, bucking his hips up unintentionally. “God, Leslie.”

Leslie arched an eyebrow at him. “Does that mean you want me to or – ”

“Yes,” Ben moaned, feeling himself growing hard just from the anticipation. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…”

He was still saying yes as Leslie slid down his body and positioned herself between Ben’s spread legs. He was still saying yes when Leslie wrapped her lips around the head of his cock. He kept saying yes until he was absolutely unable to utter another coherent word, consumed by the fire that Leslie kept igniting inside of him.

He had never known burning would feel so good.

\-------------------

Captain Swanson was positively livid as he heard what Agent Hart said. He couldn’t believe someone in his own department had betrayed them. He leaned over the table and stared down at Bill Hart until he recoiled in fear.

“I hope you know your career is definitely over. You won’t step into the federal bureau of investigation again, unless it’s in handcuffs like the criminal and traitor you are. You and your brother are going to rot in jail, and if your brother hurts Agent Wyatt or Ms. Knope in any way, I will make sure you pay for it for the rest of your miserable life. Is that clear?”

April arched an eyebrow in admiration as Hart simply nodded in defeat. She decided Hart was now in good hands, so she exited the office with her cellphone in hand, ready to contact Ben and warn him.

She called once, twice, a million times. Every time she dialed, she grew more and more nervous. The phone was out of service. She didn’t know what was going on, but she didn’t like the way her stomach turned with each straight to voicemail message. In the end, she threw her phone aside and stalked back into the office. Ben had to know what was going on, and he needed to know right now.

Captain Swanson looked away from Hart as she came back. He must have seen the look in April’s eyes, because he said: “Agent Ludgate, what is it?”

“Captain Swanson, I need a helicopter, and I need it now.”

\-------------------

When Leslie woke up, it was at least midnight. The power hadn’t come back yet, and the house was plunged in darkness. But to be honest, she wasn’t worried in the slightest. She didn’t care if the power ever came back, or if it rained for the rest of her days.

She couldn’t care, not when Ben was sleeping right next to her, a thin sheet covering him from the waist down, his breathing calm, like he no longer had a care in the world. They had somehow managed to create their own bubble of perfection, and Leslie wouldn’t have minded staying there for the rest of her life.

She looked at Ben’s face. This had to be the very first time Leslie saw him truly rest, his features relaxed as he slept deeply, without worry or fear. It was nice to see him let his guard down for a bit – Leslie knew how rough life had been for Ben. If someone deserved peace, it was him.

As she watched him, she realized there was a reason she had woken up. The storm seemed to have slowed down to a drizzle, and she could now hear the dog barking insistently. Poor thing, had they left her outside in this weather?

With one last fond look towards Ben, she disentangled herself from him and searched for some clothes in the dark. They had carried their pants and shirts from the kitchen and left them in a heap on the floor. Leslie assumed they were still wet, but she still grabbed for her shirt. She had every intention in the world of getting naked again as soon as Bella was inside.

She put the shirt on and only then realized it wasn’t her own – it was Ben’s FBI shirt. She bit her lip. She had always found it so erotic to share clothes with someone… it was intimacy beyond intimacy. And it was probably something she shouldn’t have done until she and Ben discussed things further, but in that the moment… she didn’t care. She liked the softness of the shirt against her skin, its now familiar scent drawing her in. She kept it on.

After slipping into her yoga pants, she walked out of the bedroom, careful not to make any noise. In the darkness, it surprised her how easily she could navigate the house, how used to it she was, how she had gotten to know every corner. She wasn’t trapped anymore. This was not her prison – this had now started to feel a lot like a new home.

She opened the door. It was chilly outside and she shivered. Bella was still barking, standing alone in the gallery and hiding behind the banister. Leslie walked towards her, leaned down and pet her.

“What’s up, sweet girl? Want to come inside with us?”

But Bella seemed on edge, like something was bothering her. She began to whine. Leslie had no idea what was going on. She had never had a dog in her life, so she wasn’t sure if she was trying to communicate something or if she was just making noise for the sake of making noise.

And then she saw the truck.

It was Pedro’s truck, parked right before the gate to the ranch. The headlights were on, the gate slightly opened, but he wasn’t driving inside. He was just parked there. That wasn’t like him.

“Pedro?” Leslie called out, trying to see better through the unrelenting fall of the rain. “Pedro?”

It didn’t look like there had been any kind of accident, but Leslie was still worried for his sake. She walked down the steps, out of the gallery and the shelter it provided, and headed for the truck, hoping Pedro was okay.

She didn’t even make it halfway there before there was a hand on her arm, stopping her.

Leslie didn’t need to turn around to know it was not Ben. She had grown accustomed to his touch, knew exactly how it felt to have his hands on her. 

And the way her blood had suddenly ran cold told her it wasn’t Pedro either.

She turned around, trying already to jerk away from his hold, and was met by the sight of those slimy green eyes that kept filling her nightmares. His pale thin lips stretched into a smile, a very triumphant and satisfied smile.

The killer had found her.

She tried tugging her arm away from his grip, but the man was deceptively strong. Leslie began pushing him away with all the strength she had, because this was not how things were going to end. After the FBI’s efforts – Ben’s efforts – to protect her. She had to fight.

That’s when Leslie saw it. It glowed silver in the night, and Leslie recognized it. She would never forget this knife for the rest of her life, the way it had looked soaked in blood that very first night, when this nightmare had begun.

She began to fight harder as her desperation grew right alongside the panic threatening to choke her. She kicked at him, pushed and pulled, but nothing got rid of the gleam of excitement in the killer’s eyes.

This was all a game to him. It was Leslie’s life, and it was just a game.

“Ben!” She screamed. “Ben!”

The killer made a sudden move, taking advantage of the slippery ground to push her. Leslie fell on her side and tried to stand as quickly as she hit the muddy grass, but the killer was faster and already there, pressing on her until she was face down. Leslie fought like a wild animal, but no matter what she did, it wasn’t enough. She felt the killer climbing on top of her, his heavy weight pushing her down, keeping her trapped underneath him.

Leslie’s chest seemed to constrict, as the panic took over. She was going to die here.

“Pretty woman,” the bastard spoke right into her ear, so close that it made Leslie nauseous. “I’ve searched for you everywhere.”

“Let me go,” Leslie managed to say. “Please, let me go!”

“I like it when you beg,” the killer pressed closer, his breath hot against Leslie’s skin. And then Leslie felt the sharp contact of the knife against her ribs. “You can beg and scream all you want, but you probably should stay quiet if you don’t want me to hurt you.”

Leslie knew she was as good as dead, regardless of what she did. But she wasn’t going to just lay there and let this bastard do whatever he wanted with her. If she was going to die, she was going to at least _try_. 

“Ben!” She screamed again, so hard it made her throat hurt. “Ben!”

The killer’s free hand was suddenly in her hair, forcing her face down into a large puddle next to him. “Stop calling for him! He’s not going to help you!”

Leslie couldn’t breathe. She spluttered, trying to push her head back and out of the dirty water so she could get some air, but it was useless. It was all useless.

There was a beastly growl and suddenly the pressure was off Leslie’s back. She rolled away from the puddle and grabbed a mouthful of air, coughing and spitting. She looked next to her and discovered Bella, her teeth sunk into the killer’s leg. Leslie used the opportunity to stand up, and looked around for something that could help her: a stick, a branch, a large stone–

But the killer kicked the dog off, looking angrier than he ever had before. Leslie didn’t have time to see if Bella was okay before the man was right over her again, the knife pressed against her stomach this time.

“No more games,” he spit out through gritted teeth. “You’re all mine, and I’m going to do whatever I want with you. You won’t be able to stop me. I’m going to cut you up in little pieces and enjoy every second of it… but before you’re even dead, I’m going to play with you.”

Leslie’s stomach churned. She knew exactly what he meant. She knew exactly what he did to his victims.

“Let’s start, what do you say?” The killer said, his lips pressed against Leslie’s cold cheek.

“Drop that knife and step the fuck away from her now.”

Both Leslie and the killer looked around and found Ben standing there, his gun raised steady and pointed at his target. Leslie whimpered in relief. 

Ben would always come to her rescue.

“Agent Wyatt, how nice of you to join us,” The killer said with a smile. “We meet at last.”

“Let her go,” Ben said, his eyes dark and his jaw tensed but his voice steady. “You have three seconds to let her go and put that knife down before I shoot.”

“Do you hear that, pretty woman?” The killer murmured in her ear. “Look at your knight in shining armor.”

“Three…” Ben began.

“Oh, he looks angry.”

“Two…”

The killer bit the lobe of Leslie’s ear, making her feel sick. “I’m going to enjoy killing you both.” And with that, he pushed Leslie hard, until she fell against Ben, who lowered his gun to catch her.

That was Ben’s mistake.

The killer didn’t wait. Before Ben was even done reaching for Leslie, he attacked, launching himself at Ben and causing him let go of Leslie. To Ben’s dismay, the gun slipped from his fingers, falling to the wet ground, just as the killer collided with him.

But Ben was furious enough to be able to tear this motherfucker apart with his bare hands. He closed his hands in tight fists and went straight for his face. The killer was swifter than he looked and easily avoided the hit.

“Is that all you got?” The killer taunted him. “You just ran and hid from me all the way here, and thought I wouldn’t find you? Agent Wyatt, I’m appalled.”

Ben was a good fighter. He had been top of his class at Quantico and knew very well how to move around when there weren’t any weapons available. He could be his own weapon. But there was something about this situation, about knowing Leslie was in danger, and that this man would stop at nothing to ruin their lives… it unsettled him. There was so much more at stake this time. 

And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t land a proper punch.

He threw himself at the killer, hoping to destabilize him and take him by surprise, knock him to the ground and just smash his face in with his fists. But the killer seemed to have been expecting that, and simply received the attack as if he was accepting a hug instead, throwing his arm around Ben and holding him against him.

“You can’t stop me,” he whispered, and then drove the knife home. “I’m going to kill you.”

Ben gasped and his eyes grew wide. He looked down. The knife handle was protruding from his shoulder, and there was blood already spreading rapidly over his shirt. He didn’t feel pain: he was just stunned. His body seemed to have shut down, and he fell down to his knees, still staring down at the knife, unable to stop the panic that spread just as quickly as his blood.

The killer leaned towards him, a big smile on his face. “Wait, Agent Wyatt. Don’t die yet. You have to see what I do with her first.”

A single tear made its way down Ben’s face. He had failed. All that training, all that hard work, and for what? He was never able to protect the people he loved when it counted. First his dad and Henry, and now Leslie–

There was a loud bang. The killer’s smile was frozen on his face. He looked down and now found blood spreading through his own clothes. Their eyes met, slimy green and warm brown, before they both turned their faces to look at Leslie, who was standing there shaking, with the gun in her hands.

“You got me, pretty woman,” the killer conceded, and then promptly collapsed on the ground.

Leslie didn’t wait to see what happened. She dropped the gun and raced towards Ben, landing on her knees next to him, just as Ben’s body gave out. He fell into Leslie’s arms and looked up at her face, like it was the beacon of light guiding him home. There was blood pouring freely from his shoulder, and Leslie was desperate. Was she supposed to remove the knife? Would that make it worse?

A faint smile grew on Ben’s lips as he looked at her. “Leslie…”

“D – don’t say anything,” Leslie choked out. The tears were threatening to break through and her whole body was shaking. “Save your strength. We have to get to the car. I have to drive you to a hospital, I have to – ”

“It’s okay,” Ben whispered weakly, and Leslie knew he was fading away. “Just… Leslie – ”

Leslie was crying. She didn’t know what to do. “Yes?”

“I – I… I’m in… I – ” Ben gasped, the pain coursing through him like venom. He wasn’t going to last much longer, so she stayed root to her spot, clinging to his broken body as the tears flowed freely now. “Leslie – ”

Leslie felt him get loose in her arms as he fell unconscious. His eyes dropped shut, his hands going limp next to her. “No. Ben! No, no, no – ” Leslie pressed her forehead to Ben’s and rocked him slowly, like cradling a baby. “Don’t. Please don’t do this. Ben, please, I need you.”

As Leslie felt a new kind of darkness enveloping her, she thought she heard something. The dog was barking again, this time at the sky, and she looked up just in time to see a helicopter drawing closer to their location. She knew what it meant with just one glance, but she didn’t care.

She looked down at Ben again, held him tightly against her, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Leslie knew it was too late.


	11. Chapter 11

There was no other way to describe how Leslie was feeling but numb. It was as if she was floating on a cloud, completely oblivious to everything that was happening around her. All she knew was that she was sitting in a loud waiting room in an Indiana hospital and that somewhere in that same building, Ben was fighting for his life.

All she knew was that one second she was holding Ben in her arms, watching the blood spread through his shirt, watching him die in her arms, and the next she was being forced to let him go as April arrived with a full team. And now, somehow, she was finally back in Indiana, the place she had wished so many times she hadn’t had to leave… and she would have given anything to just be back in Minnesota, back in that bed with Ben pressed against her – safe, breathing and hers.

She closed her eyes, trying to find some peace, something to ground her, but she had to open them back again. All she could see, like a flashback in a film reel against her eyelids, was the gun in her hand, her finger pulling the trigger, and the bullet piercing the killer’s back.

She had killed a man.

How did a person ever come back from that?

Leslie was about to let herself sink deeper into despair when she heard someone calling her name.

“Leslie? Leslie!” She looked up and saw Ann running towards her. The sight of her best friend was enough to make her body function again, and she stood up, opening her arms to receive the enormous hug Ann was already giving her.

She buried her face in the crook of Ann’s shoulder and held on as tightly as she could. Maybe if she stood there, everything else would just go away.

“ _Leslie_ ,” Ann sounded choked, like she was doing her best not to cry. “How are you? What happened? Are you hurt?”

The questions were too much. Leslie didn’t have answers. Was she supposed to say she was okay when she really, really wasn’t? Was she supposed to put up a façade with her best friend when what she had done would change her completely? Was she supposed to say things were fine when Pedro had also been brought into the hospital after being found unconscious in his car? Was she supposed to say she was unhurt when Ben was still in danger and that hurt her more than any other thing that could have happened tonight?

Instead of answering, Leslie finally let go and sobbed into her best friend’s shoulder, and Ann held her helplessly, wishing she could say something that would comfort her, but she was also eternally grateful that Leslie had come back to her at last.

Leslie’s sense of time was slightly warped. She didn’t know how long she and Ann sat there in silence. She could feel the questions brewing inside her best friend, but she couldn’t bring herself to give any explanations.

“There’s only one thing I need to know, and then I promise I’ll shut up and wait until you’re ready,” Ann confessed when she obviously couldn’t take it any longer. Leslie turned her head and faced her, her eyes devoid of any kind of emotion. “Is any of the blood on your shirt yours? Are you hurt?”

Leslie glanced down at herself. She had forgotten she was still wearing Ben’s FBI shirt. There was a large dark red stain in it. It made her stomach twist, making her nauseous. “No. It’s Ben’s.”

Ann didn’t say anything. She simply removed her jacket and placed it on Leslie’s shoulders, shielding her from the sight of the dried blood, and then grabbed her hand, squeezing it between her own.

April and Chris appeared at the end of the hallway, walking towards the waiting room with their heads bent together, speaking in low and hushed voices. Leslie instantly stood up and made her way to them, intercepting them. Both agents stopped in their tracks.

“Ms. Knope – ” April began, but Leslie couldn’t even wait to hear what she had to say.

“How’s Ben? When can I see him?”

There was a quick shift in April’s eyes, a sliver of curiosity that was soon gone, replaced by the same concern that had been there before. “He’s in surgery right now. He lost a lot of blood. That’s all we know for now. I guess we’ll have to wait.”

Leslie took a deep breath. She felt Ann standing next to her, a comforting hand on her arm. She was so grateful for Ann. “What about Pedro?”

“Mr. Garcia is going to be just fine. He’s not showing any signs of concussion and he wasn’t badly hurt,” Chris explained. “We’ve called his son, and he’s coming for him to take him back home to Minnesota.”

Leslie closed her eyes for a moment. It was good news. At least one positive among this madness. “Can I see him, please? I want to talk to him, make sure he’s alright.”

“Sure,” April said, and gestured for her to follow. “I’ll show you to his room.”

Leslie looked back over her shoulder to tell Ann she would be right back, but found that her best friend had stepped closer to Agent Traeger and they were talking in quit voices so that Leslie nor April could hear. There was something so intimate about them, and Leslie realized there were a lot more stories to tell than her own.

April allowed her some privacy when they reached Pedro’s room. The old man was awake and staring at the ceiling, a frown on his face. There was a large bandage on his head, but he actually looked decent, considering the circumstances. Leslie felt a wave of relief washing over her as she moved closer to the bed.

“Señorita Leslie!” Pedro exclaimed, sitting up. “I’m so happy to see you are okay.”

“I can say the same thing about you,” Leslie said, smiling at him as she took a seat on the chair by the bed. “How are you feeling, Pedro?”

“I would be a lot better if someone told me how Ben is,” Pedro’s worried eyes settled on her, searching for answers in Leslie’s face.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you do,” Leslie replied sadly. “He’s in surgery and we won’t know more until after that.”

Suddenly, Pedro’s eyes filled with tears. Leslie, alarmed, moved closer to the bed and held the old man’s hand in hers. “I’m so sorry, Señorita Leslie. It’s all my fault.”

“What? No, why would you think that?” Leslie asked, frowning in confusion. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That man followed me home from the bar,” Pedro said, now fully crying. It was devastating to see him like this. “I stopped there to eat something and wait out the storm. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Leslie squeezed his hand. “We should have warned you, Pedro. We should have told you the real reason we were at the ranch. It was wrong of us to put you in that kind of danger.”

Pedro wiped his tears away. “I don’t care about that. I just hope my mistake doesn’t cost Ben too much.” He shook his head. “That silly boy. He always has to be the hero.”

“He really is silly,” Leslie said, and now she had started crying alongside him. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Nuestro Ben,” Pedro whispered fondly. “He is strong. I know he will be okay. He has a very important reason to be okay, you know?”

Leslie looked at him. “What reason?”

“You,” Pedro replied, making Leslie almost choke on a sob. “I hadn’t seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. He may be a little slow when it comes to these things, but he figured it out in the end, I think.” When Leslie seemed even more confused, Pedro chuckled and patted her hand. “That he’s in love with you, of course.”

Leslie was unsure whether that was supposed to make her smile or cry harder, so she just did both at the same time. “Pedro…”

“And you’re just as in love with him. So, when he gets out of this hospital, please do me a favor: stop wasting time,” Pedro said, looking right into Leslie’s eyes to make sure his message got through. “We all know how precious time is. Be with the people you love. Tell him how you feel.”

Leslie swallowed with difficulty as she nodded. “I will. I’ll tell him.”

“Good,” Pedro seemed content with her answer and laid back down against the pillows. But then he looked alarmed again. “What happened to Bella? Who’s going to take care of the animals while I’m here?”

“Bella was fine, just a little scared, when we left. And some agents stayed back to work at the ranch, so I’m sure the animals will be taken care of. Just rest, okay? Your son should be here soon,” Leslie said, standing up and pressing a kiss to the man’s forehead. “I’ll come see you again later.”

“I would like that very much,” Pedro murmured, finally looking at ease. “Cuídese, Señorita Leslie. Y cuide a mi Ben.”

Leslie didn’t need to know Spanish to understand what Pedro was asking of her, so before she left the room, she turned to look at him once more and said: “I promise.”

When Leslie made her way back to the waiting room, she found April, Chris and Ann talking. Just as she had noticed how close Ann and Agent Traeger seemed before, now she noticed just how exhausted and drained Agent Ludgate looked. She knew how close she and Ben were – it couldn’t be easy for her to be here now, waiting to find out if Ben would be alright.

“ – so I can drive them,” Chris was saying when Leslie joined them. “And then I’ll come back here and wait with you.”

“Please pick up some decent coffee on your way back,” April said with a tired sigh. “I don’t think I can drink the garbage they serve here, and I drink the garbage at the FBI every day of my life.”

“Sure,” Chris nodded. He turned to look at Leslie. “Ms. Knope, if you’re ready now, I’ll drive you and Ann home.”

Leslie took a step back, as if she suddenly needed to be physically away from him. “What? I’m not going anywhere.”

“But Leslie – ”

“No,” Leslie interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere until I get to see Ben and know he’s alright. And I won’t leave until Pedro’s son gets here. I won’t leave him alone.”

“Look, Ms. Knope,” April said. She clearly didn’t have any patience left to deal with Leslie’s stubbornness. “I understand you’re worried, but we don’t know how long it’ll be until Ben is allowed visitors, and Mr. Garcia’s son won’t be here for a few hours. There’s plenty of time for you to go home, take a shower, rest and eat something. I’m sure you had a very long day and would like to spend some quality time with your friend – ”

“But – ” Leslie said, ready to fight back, but Ann placed a hand on her shoulder in an effort to dissuade her.

“She’s right, Leslie,” Ann agreed quietly. “No offense, but you really look like you could use a shower and a nap. And there’s nothing we can do here.”

“We will need you at the bureau later to answer some questions about what happened,” April said. “I’ll call you as soon as the doctor has any updates on Ben. I promise.”

Leslie didn’t want to go. She was ready to protest again, but then she looked down and saw her blood-stained shirt… Ben’s dried blood against her skin. She felt sick just thinking about it. She was too tired, too scared to refuse, and just one look at Ann’s face was enough to make her deflate in defeat. She would never say no to anything Ann asked of her. Not after what they had been through.

“Fine,” Leslie conceded. April nodded and turned around, ready to walk away, but Leslie put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Agent Ludgate, I beg you… I need to know as soon as Ben’s out of surgery. I need to know how he is. Just… please.”

Her dark eyes searched Leslie’s, as if looking for something, though she didn’t know what. She must have found it, because she gave her a tight lipped smile and nodded again. “You have my word, Ms. Knope.”

Ann threw an arm around her shoulders to guide her away, following Chris down the hallway and out of the hospital. But with every step Leslie took, with the distance between her and Ben growing by the second, she couldn’t help but feel she was leaving the exact place where she was supposed to be.

\-------------------

Leslie only pressed her hand fleetingly against Ann’s arm as she passed by her and into the house. Ann watched her go, shoulders hunched, and understood. They had developed a communication beyond words in all the years they had been friends, and Ann now knew exactly what Leslie needed without Leslie having to say it.

Today, however, she hated giving Leslie space, allowing her the alone time she so desperately seemed to need. Today, she wanted to crush her in a hug and never let her go.

As soon as Leslie caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, she turned towards the toilet and emptied the contents of her stomach into it. She started to shake uncontrollably and had to practically drag herself towards the shower once she was done throwing up.

She removed the clothes she was wearing. Ben’s Quantico shirt, stained dark with blood, was thrown across the bathroom as far as possible. She didn’t want to look at it. She didn’t want to think of it. She wanted to get away from everything that had just happened.

Her legs felt too weak to stand so she sat in a corner of the shower under the scalding water and hugged her knees to her chest.

She shut her eyes so tightly they hurt. “Everything’s fine. I’m safe. Everything can go back to normal now. I’m safe. Everything’s fine.”

She repeated the words like a mantra, trying to convince herself that the worst was behind her. But it didn’t feel like a victory. It wouldn’t feel like a victory until Ben was fine. If Ben… if something happened to Ben –

She didn’t realize the water had gone cold until Ann was pounding on the bathroom door. How long had she been sitting there, wet, miserable and scared?

“Leslie? Leslie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied in a strangled voice. She reached towards the faucet and cut the water spray. “I… I don’t have any clothes with me. Could you get me something?”

“Yeah, I think you left a pair of pajamas here one of the last times you came over,” Ann said. “I’ll go get them.”

Leslie heard Ann’s steps retreating and then coming back. She got out of the shower, feeling as steady as a bowl of jelly, and wrapped herself in a fluffy white towel. She opened the door just a smidge, enough for Ann to pass her the pajamas.

Ann’s eyes studied her face quickly. “I ordered some food, I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten, so…”

“I didn’t,” Leslie answered, though she wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. She couldn’t remember. Right now, all she remembered was the deafening sound of the gun going off in her hands.

“Okay, then I’ll see you in the living room in a minute. I think there’s a marathon of one of those shows you like,” Ann tried to smile, and Leslie loved her for it. She was so grateful for her best friend.

When Leslie made her way into the living room, she found Ann sitting on the couch in comfy sweatpants and an old shirt. The television was on, an old episode of Antique Roadshow playing in the background, and the coffee table was covered with a ridiculous amount of food.

“I didn’t know what you’d be on the mood for, so I got Chinese, Thai and pizza. I also had some frozen waffles and cinnamon rolls in the fridge, so I made those, and – ” Ann stopped talking, watched Leslie as she wobbled in the middle of the living room. “Hey. Come sit, Leslie.”

Leslie obliged. She suddenly felt like a small child, wished she could hide under her safety blanket and ask for her parents’ comfort. “Ann…”

“Leslie,” Ann said, turning on the couch to face her. “Hey. I know you’ve been through hell. I know there’s nothing I can do to make things better for you, to erase what happened… but I’m here, okay? You can talk to me about it. I will do whatever I can to make things better for you.”

Leslie gave her a sad, watery smile. “Unless you can make Ben okay and healthy, I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do, Ann. But thank you.”

Ann nodded slowly. She looked Leslie in the eyes. “You care about him, don’t you?”

Leslie didn’t reply. She couldn’t. There was a large knot in her throat, threatening to choke her.

Again, Ann understood without the need for words. She simply wrapped one arm around her best friend’s shoulders and pulled her closer, trying to provide as much comfort as she could, and waited.

All they could do now was wait.

April wasn’t sure how long she had been wandering the hospital halls, but she could have navigated it with her eyes closed at this point. She wasn’t good with waiting: it made her restless, it made her feel useless and afraid, and April Ludgate was not the kind of woman who was used to being afraid.

April Ludgate was the kind of woman who made things happen, who found solutions to every problem, who wasn’t reticent to get her hands dirty.

Except, in this opportunity, there really wasn’t anything she could do but sit hopelessly in a waiting room. She couldn’t be next to Ben, couldn’t perform the surgery, couldn’t save his life.

She just had to sit, and wait, and accept whatever outcome the doctor brought her once they were done.

She hated it.

Andy had called a million times. April had appreciated every second of those phone calls, her husband’s voice the only thing tethering her to sanity. She wished she could just wrap her arms around Andy, allow herself to be vulnerable the way she was when only the love of her life could see her, and find comfort in him. But April didn’t want Andy here, at the same time. She didn’t want to put stress on him or the baby, or to make him listen to any bad news that could potentially harm her or their son. April knew that if anything happened to Ben, Andy would be completely devastated too, but April had to be selfish, at least this once, at least for this, and give herself the space to be devastated without having to take care of anyone else. If something happened to Ben –

“Nothing’s going to happen to him,” April repeated to herself fiercely, and an old woman who was slowly walking down the hallway with a cane looked at her as if wondering if April was talking to her.

So, April waited. Alone.

Chris had called from the office a few times. Things are the bureau were hectic, to say the least. Captain Swanson had stopped by the hospital briefly to get an update on Ben before joining the team for a big meeting. April was technically supposed to be there as well, but not even her boss had dared to remove her from this cold waiting room where time seemed to stand still.

With a sigh, she headed towards the end of the hall to get another cup of crappy coffee. She would never insult the coffee they had at the bureau ever again.

April caught a flash of white coming the opposite direction and she stopped in her tracks. She had seen like a million doctors since she had arrived earlier – or was it the night before, or the day before? – but no one had had any answers for her. However, she thought she recognized the woman, her dark hair held back in a strict-looking bun, and she was wearing blue scrubs under her white coat.

“Excuse me,” the woman said. “I’m Doctor Mullins. Are you here for Mr. Wyatt? I think I saw you with him when they brought him in.”

“Yes,” April said in anguish, and suddenly her heart was lodged in her throat. “Yes, I’m April Ludgate, his partner. We’re in the FBI together. Is he okay? What happened?”

“He’s just out of surgery, so we have to wait and see how he progresses now. He lost a lot of blood, so he will be a little weak, and we’ll keep him in observation for a few days. He’s lucky that whoever stabbed him, narrowly missed his axillary artery or he would be dead right now. But everything went well and we’re expecting a full recovery.”

April had never felt more free in her life. She was grateful for the gun she carried at the waist – its weight seemed to be the only thing keeping her from floating away. Her knees felt wobbly, like jello, so she allowed herself to fall onto a chair nearby. She looked up at the doctor, shaking with the last remaining vestiges of fear. “So he’s fine?”

“As fine as someone can be after being stabbed in the chest,” Doctor Mullins replied. “Like I said, we need to see how he progresses, but the surgery went well, so we’re not expecting any complications.”

In a moment of weakness, April did something no one would have ever expected from Agent Ludgate.

She hugged the doctor.

“Thank you,” she muttered, relieved. “Thank you. When can I see him?”

The doctor patted her back gently and April let go, quickly regaining her poise. “The nurses should be bringing him into a private room in a few minutes. Once he’s settled, you can go in and see him.”

“Thank you,” April repeated, and she could have said only those two words for the rest of her life.

After exchanging a few more words, the doctor walked away, leaving April alone, but surrounded by strangers who didn’t understand how important it was that Ben Wyatt was still a part of this world. They had no idea what they were missing out on.

So April fished her phone out of her pocket and called someone who did.

“Babe? It’s me. He’s going to be fine.”

\-------------------

She knew perfectly well it was a cliché, but even so, April couldn’t help thinking that Ben looked small in that hospital bed.

He was hooked up to a bunch of machines, surrounded by white sheets, white walls and white gauze on his chest. It was like a cloud had swallowed him. He was pale, and there were dark marks under his eyes.

Frankly, he looked like shit.

April dragged a chair next to the bed so she could sit by his side. She studied him silently for a moment, taking in all of the details. She analyzed them in her head, cataloguing all the things that didn’t feel right: the little cut above his eyebrow, the purple bruise on his shoulder, the cuts on his knuckles. It wasn’t the first time Ben was injured during a case, but it was the first time April had thought he might not make it.

She was going to give him hell for worrying her like that.

Ben groaned and moved his head from side to side, slowly but surely. He was still under the effects of the anesthesia. The nurses had told April that he might be groggy for awhile. They had advised her to let him sleep it off.

He didn’t look like he wanted to sleep it off. If anything, he looked restless.

“Ben?” 

He opened his eyes and tried to focus them on her, but he seemed to be having trouble concentrating. “April?” 

“I’m here, buddy. Just sleep for a while and we can talk when you’re feeling better.”

“Leslie,” Ben slurred. He began to move as if wanting to get out of bed, but clearly too out of it to be even remotely successful. “Leslie.”

“Hey, hey, hey, easy. You can’t get out of bed. According to the doctor, you’ll be there for a few days. So chill, Wyatt.”

“Leslie,” Ben insisted, sounding more and more desperate.

“Leslie is fine,” April assured him, and she saw him relax minutely. “She’s with her friend. Everything’s fine. It’s over, Ben.”

The anesthesia was making it hard for Ben to stay awake, but he made the effort anyway. “Leslie. Need to see her,” he mumbled, and it took a couple of seconds for April to decipher what he had just said.

“Okay, fine,” April said, rolling her eyes. Even completely drugged and after being stabbed, Ben could be so damn stubborn. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Ben’s eyes fell shut again, and he was out like a light in a second. April sighed – it wasn’t perfect, but things were going to be fine, eventually. It was good enough for now.

She walked out of the room slowly, making sure not to disturb Ben, and dialed another number on her phone. The call was picked up before it rang the second time.

“Ms. Perkins? This is Agent Ludgate. Could you please put your friend on the phone?”

\-------------------

Leslie burst through the hospital doors, her feet moving so fast they practically didn’t touch the floor. Ann was having trouble keeping up with her.

But Leslie had something much more important waiting at the end of the line.

She jogged through the hallways aimlessly, looking around for something that indicated where Ben was, or for someone who could help her. She finally spotted a nurse coming out of a room and stopped her, her voice pleading as she said: “Please, could you tell me where Ben Wyatt is?”

The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t know. But there’s a nurse station in that direction if you want to – ”

Leslie wasn’t listening anymore. She spotted April at the end of the hallway, clearly having a heated argument with a vending machine.

“You fucking thing, give me my chips!” She was saying, and punched it hard with her fist.

“Thank you,” Leslie said, not really paying attention, and leaving the nurse behind to go straight towards April, Ann right behind her. “Agent Ludgate?”

April turned towards her, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline as she regarded her. “Oh, Ms. Knope. I didn’t think you would make it here so quickly – ”

“She dragged me out the door as soon as you hung up the phone,” Ann said, laughing, but quickly stopped talking when she realized Leslie wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“Where is he? Can I see him? What did the doctor say?” Leslie asked, her hands wringing in anxiety.

April studied her for a moment before she replied. “As I told you on the phone, the doctor said he will be okay, we just need to give him a little time. He’s asleep – the anesthesia is kicking his butt – but I’m sure when he wakes up he’ll be glad to know you were here to – ”

“I want to see him,” Leslie cut her off, both polite and sharp, making sure she understood she wasn’t going anywhere until she could see Ben.

April once again paused, like she was analyzing every single one of Leslie’s words and actions. Finally, she nodded minutely. Whatever she had found seemed to have satisfied her. “Very well. He’s in room 206. Just down this hall, third door.”

Leslie looked at Ann briefly, who simply smiled in encouragement and waved her away, as if assuring her she would be fine waiting here with April. Leslie took a deep breath and stepped away from them, heading down the hall towards room 206.

The door was ajar and she saw Ben even before she was inside. At first glance, he seemed so peaceful, like he was just resting after a long day. But once Leslie went in and walked closer to the bed, she saw the bruises, the cuts, the paleness of his skin.

The bandage that hid the place where the killer had stabbed him.

Leslie let herself fall onto the chair by the bed. For a few seconds, she just sat there and looked at Ben, trying to understand how the hell they had ended up here, like this. Not too long ago they had been tangled in a bed, smiling and sharing secrets. Now Ben was in the hospital, and Leslie was trying to force her heart to calm down, to beat normally, to stop fearing she would lose this amazing man she had met a few weeks ago and who had already weaved his way into Leslie’s life and soul.

Ben shifted in his sleep, and then grunted, as if the movement had been painful. Leslie straightened up in her seat and inched closer, just as Ben blinked his eyes open sleepily.

“Leslie?” He murmured, his voice low and hoarse.

“Hey you,” Leslie said, as a smile spread over her face. She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. God, she was just so _happy_ to be there. A lonely tear made its way down her cheek and Leslie quickly wiped it away. “How are you feeling?”

“Don’t know,” Ben answered. He seemed to be having trouble staying awake, but it was clear he was fighting to achieve it anyway. “You?”

“Me? Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry about me. I’m okay,” Leslie assured him. “Just glad you didn’t – you – ”

Leslie’s voice cracked. Even thinking about what could have happened to Ben sent pangs of unbearable pain all throughout her body.

Ben’s hand twitched on the bed, palm up, and it took a couple of seconds for Leslie to realize he was reaching for her.

Without hesitation, Leslie slid her hand into his, feeling herself revive just from the touch of Ben’s skin. She leaned closer, voice only a whisper. “You’re the bravest man I have ever met, Ben Wyatt. And I owe you my life.”

A small smile hinted its way onto Ben’s lips, just before his eyelids drooped. He was clearly too exhausted to stay awake, and though there were a million things Leslie wanted to say to him, she was just as content sitting here as he rested, holding his hand, feeling his warmth and his pulse, and waiting for Ben to recover.

That was all that mattered now.

Ben slept.

Leslie stayed where he was, in that chair next to the bed, Ben’s hand cradled between hers, her thumb stroking little circles into his skin, over and over and over again.

She didn’t want to let go.

Nurses came and went, checking Ben’s vitals, scribbling things on clipboards, glancing curiously at Leslie as she sat there, unmoving. She had no idea how long she was there. She was too busy counting the times Ben’s chest rose as he breathed to care about time.

Someone cleared their throat loudly behind her, startling her. She looked over her shoulder and found Agent Ludgate, arms crossed over her chest, gaze intent on Leslie. She noticed how she focused on the way she was holding Ben’s hand, but she didn’t say anything.

“Captain Swanson called. Some agents went looking for you at your friend’s house, but when they couldn’t find you there, Agent Traeger suggested they try here. They want you at the bureau to take a statement.”

Leslie sighed. “Does it have to be today? I’m tired.”

“There’s not much point in you sitting here, Ms. Knope. He’s going to be sleeping on and off for awhile. I think it’d be better for you if you just get this over with. Ben’s not going anywhere.”

Leslie almost said that she wanted to be there whenever Ben woke up again, no matter how long he was awake for. She wanted to hear his voice and look into his eyes and begin to understand that the worst was behind them.

She suspected April wouldn’t care much for her sentimentalism.

“Okay, fine,” Leslie said reluctantly. She hesitated for a moment, and then simply lifted Ben’s hand and pressed a kiss to his fingers. “I’ll see you soon.”

April watched her with an arched eyebrow, but didn’t comment on the gesture.

“Let’s go,” Leslie said, turning towards her.

“Oh, Agent Gergich is waiting outside to take you,” April replied, taking her place on the chair. “I’ll stay here with Ben.”

They exchanged a quick glance. They didn’t say a word, and yet they suddenly meant so much, and agreed on even more.

“Okay. Keep me updated?” She asked, and she simply nodded, all the promise she could get from her.

She left the room with one last longing look towards Ben.

\-------------------

Captain Swanson was a strong, strict man who could command a room with just a look, who could intimidate his staff with his presence if the circumstance required it, and who inspired love and loyalty in every single person who worked at the bureau. He was a force to be reckoned with.

He was also incredibly gentle and understanding when he needed to be.

Leslie found that she was having trouble breathing. She had thought she would be okay retelling the events of the night before. She thought that now that threat was gone, now that Ben was out of danger, she would start to feel better, go back to normal.

Apparently shooting and killing a person, no matter how awful that person was, did something to you.

Captain Swanson placed a glass of water in front of her. Leslie drank it in two large gulps.

“I appreciate you coming in and talking to us. I know it was a very traumatic experience, and I want you to know we’re here for you, if you need anything. We have amazing counselors you could talk to, if you want.”

Leslie shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it again, at least not now. Deep down inside, where she was still rational despite the nervous breakdown, she knew she would probably have to talk to a professional, maybe go to therapy, at some point. But today… she couldn’t deal with saying all of it, all over again. Once was enough.

“Thank you,” Leslie said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

Captain Swanson smiled at her reassuringly. “What you’re feeling now is perfectly normal, Ms. Knope. I have agents who have been with the FBI for years, who are trained for the kind of thing you went through, and still have trouble accepting traumatic events. It’s normal.”

Leslie nodded. “I know.”

“And you saved Agent Wyatt’s life,” Captain Swanson added warmly. “He’s my best agent, and an amazing man. You did what you had to do, and I thank you for your bravery.”

Leslie stared at him in disbelief. She had been so humbled and grateful to Ben for saving her life, that she hadn’t realized she had also saved Ben’s.

In so many ways, they had saved each other.

She sniffled and nodded again. She didn’t know what to say.

Captain Swanson stood up and extended a hand towards her. “Thank you so much for your time, Ms. Knope. We appreciate your cooperation throughout this case. We wouldn’t have been able to put a stop to these crimes without you.”

“You’re welcome,” Leslie said, although it didn’t feel right. What she wanted to say was: _Thank you for forcing me out of Indiana. Thank you for assigning Ben to my case. Thank you for bringing us together._

“You can stay here, if you need a moment. Your friend is waiting outside for you. And if there’s anything we can ever do for you, do not hesitate to let us know.”

Leslie thanked him again and watched him leave the conference room. She remembered being in this same room what felt like a lifetime ago, standing by the window and looking out at the city she loved so much, wondering what would happen to her, back when her biggest worry was job growth in City Hall.

Life had a funny way of putting things in perspective.

She could see Ann sitting outside in the hallway, waiting for her. Her best friend was sneaking glances around the room, as if looking for something. It had been just the two of them for so long now, and sometimes it still felt like they were lost, missing a piece, stumbling through life as a family of two.

More than ever, Leslie longed for her father’s embrace, his words of wisdom, the pat on the back after a job well done, the kiss on the forehead when she was sick. Whenever she had been lost before, she had turned to her father. But her father wasn’t there anymore.

Leslie felt like she was being pulled in two directions: she wanted to run back to Ben’s side, but she also needed time to get back on her feet, to learn to live with the events of the past few weeks.

She found Ann’s eyes across the conference room’s glass. She knew what she needed to do.


	12. Chapter 12

One of the things Leslie loved most about her best friend was that Ann knew when not to ask any questions.

Leslie walked up to her after she left the conference room and said: “I want to go to Florida.”

It only took two seconds for Ann to nod her head in agreement. “Okay. When are we leaving?”

She only asked the _right_ questions.

They went back to Ann’s house and packed a bag. Leslie didn’t have much to pack, really, since everything was back at her own house, and she didn’t feel like going there for the time being. She decided she would buy whatever she needed at whatever store she could find in Florida. More than clothes, what she needed right now was to get out of there.

While she had been away at the ranch, she had somehow believed that all the answers she was looking for had been waiting for her right here in Indiana. Now she realized she was wrong. She needed to go back to her roots. She needed to put everything else behind her. She needed to see her father.

Ann had suggested looking at flights online before they left, but Leslie said she wanted to go by train. Back when she was younger and had visited family in other cities and states, she had always taken the train. She remembered her father standing on the platform, waiting for her with his hands in his jeans pocket, and grinning as soon as he saw his daughter.

She knew there wouldn’t be anyone waiting for her on that platform this time, but it still felt like that was what Leslie needed to do.

It was a sunny day. Ann brought along a bag of unhealthy snacks and put it on the seat between them. They stretched their legs as much as they could and nibbled on chocolates and cookies as they watched the scenery change outside the window. Indiana was left behind, and so were Leslie’s problems.

Or so she hoped, at least.

Once the city was far behind them, Leslie asked Ann to tell her all about what had happened with her while she had been away in Minnesota. Ann spoke in a soft and soothing voice, about shifts at the hospital, about the fear of something happening to Leslie, about Chris. And when she talked about Chris, her voice became so reverent, so full of admiration, that Leslie realized she had not been the only one who had fallen in love despite the circumstances.

Leslie could feel Ann’s curiosity coming out of her in waves. It was obvious her best friend also wanted to know about everything that had happened at the ranch. But Leslie wasn’t ready to talk about it, not yet at least, and Ann always respected that. Leslie wanted to tell her, but it felt like now was not the time for it. Not when the day was so beautiful and her belly was full of sugar.

It seemed surreal that after what felt like such a long nightmare, a day as bright as this could exist.

Leslie hadn’t been in Florida in a long time. She hadn’t found enough reasons to go back since her father had died. Somehow, Leslie expected to see Florida and not recognize it, to discover it had moved on without the Knopes. However, as she stood right in the center of town, she wondered if Florida existed in an alternative universe where nothing ever changed. The stores were the same, people’s faces looked familiar even if Leslie had no idea what their names were, the neighbors’ garden still had the same rosebushes they’ve had since Leslie was a kid. This had been her father’s home, her father’s place of birth and where he had grown up. He had loved it here, maybe even more than Leslie loved Pawnee. And even though it wasn’t _her_ home, it felt like it was simply because her father had loved living here.

Nothing had changed, and yet the woman who had just stepped off a train from Indiana couldn’t be any more different from the girl who had once spent summers and holidays and vacations there.

When her father had died, they hadn’t known what to do with the house. He had owned it, inheriting it from his own parents upon their death, but had only visited after his move to Pawnee with her mother, where they’d made a home together. Should they sell it? Should they rent it? In the end, they decided to keep it. It probably wasn’t the smartest decision, but today Leslie was grateful that her mother had decided to keep it and pass it on to her. She opened the door and it was like falling into a rabbit hole: time disappeared, heartache didn’t exist. She was still Leslie Knope, the same girl who had laughed, dreamed and breathed in this very house.

It took a longer look to realize just how empty it looked.

“It’s been awhile,” Ann whispered, and Leslie knew she was noticing the same thing.

Leslie thought back to the second room at the ranch, the one Ben had kept closed and unused. This house looked exactly like it: like it had been a perfect place to make memories, but now they were all covered in dust and heartbreak.

Leslie walked into the living room. Everything was just as she remembered it. She took a seat on her dad’s favorite armchair and closed her eyes. The old leather still smelled like him, despite the years and the absence.

Ann watched her from the archway. “I’ll go leave the bags in our rooms. Maybe we can go get something to eat afterwards? I’m starving.”

Leslie nodded. She knew when Ann was trying to give her some space, and she appreciated it. “Alright. Sounds like a plan.”

She heard Ann’s steps as she retreated up the stairs. Then the house fell silent, as if no one was there. This had been home, still was in many ways. The place where Leslie had been happy, where she had cried, where she had dreamed, where she had learned what love was. The place where she had grieved. The place she’d felt most connected with her father. Something she could feel in her spirit where it met her bones. 

And hopefully, this would also be the place where she would heal.

\-------------------

The next time Ben woke up, he felt his head was a lot clearer. The anesthesia had finally worn off, and with that, he could also feel the pain. He groaned in discomfort and tried to sit up.

“Ah, no. Stay exactly where you are,” April said, appearing before him. “You’re not getting out of that bed.”

“I think I need to pee.”

“I’ll get a nurse and they can help you with that. Do you want me to request a beautiful female nurse?” April asked, winking saucily at him.

Ben did his best to look exasperated and rolled his eyes at her. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re in pain,” April replied, sobering slightly. Ben could see how worried she truly was. “You really should stay in bed.”

Sighing, Ben desisted. He would attempt to get up when she wasn’t looking. “It’s not that bad. Remember when I got shot that one time? That was more painful.”

“Don’t remind me,” April huffed. “You bled all over my favorite shirt.”

They smiled. Teasing each other made them feel like nothing had ever gone wrong.

“So, what happened?” Ben asked at last. “Did you guys catch the bastard?”

April frowned at him as she sat on the chair by the bed. “You don’t remember anything?”

“A little. Details are sort of… fuzzy,” Ben admitted. “Fill me in.”

“Well, we did catch him. But he was dead,” April said carefully. “Knope shot him.”

“What?” Ben moved so suddenly his chest throbbed in pain. He hissed. “Godammit.”

“Hey, easy there,” April put a hand on his good shoulder and pushed him back against the pillows. “If you don’t behave, your doctor is going to kick me out of here. So be silent and don’t move.”

Ben took a deep breath and closed his eyes. If he focused hard enough, he remembered. The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber, the killer falling on him, Leslie’s teary eyes looking down at him–

“Oh, Leslie… she must have felt so – ” He couldn’t even figure out what Leslie must have been feeling. “I should have – ”

“Do not start, Wyatt. You did exactly what you had to do, and I’m so damn glad Knope was there to help you,” April said fiercely. “Plus, I haven’t even told you the juiciest details yet.”

Ben blinked in surprise. “You mean there’s more?”

“The killer was Hart’s brother.”

It took a few seconds for Ben to process the information. He couldn’t believe it. Suddenly all the pieces fell into place, and everything made sense. “Tell me everything.”

April was a great storyteller, especially when she had a good role in the story. She spared no details in telling him exactly how she had discovered Hart, how she had made him confess, and then requested a helicopter to go to his and Leslie’s aid. It was like something right out of a movie.

“I can’t believe he would betray us like that…” Ben mumbled when she was done.

“No one could believe it. He was always a great agent. I still don’t understand what happened,” April admitted. She then watched Ben quietly for a few seconds, as Ben mulled over the information he had just received. “Are you going to tell me what happened at the ranch or will I have to keep filling in the blanks myself?”

The ranch felt so far away now, as Ben laid in a hospital bed. The brief happiness he had felt on that last day, as he and Leslie forgot completely about the rest of the world had been so rare and precious. He wasn’t sure it was supposed to be shared, spoken about. It seemed fragile, like it would come apart if he didn’t take care of it.

“It’s fine, I think I know without you telling me anyway,” April shrugged, giving him a way out.

“You do?” Ben should have been surprised, but he really wasn’t. April knew him better than anyone.

“Well, Knope was wearing your shirt when we found you, the first thing you asked about when you woke up from surgery was her, and she’s been a pain in the ass since we got here, so…” April made it sound like it annoyed her, but she seemed pleased. “I think she feels the same.”

Ben sighed. “I hope she does,” he admitted quietly, almost shyly. When he couldn’t take April’s intent gaze anymore, he asked: “Where is she now? Is she here?”

“No, actually. She called me earlier today to tell me she was going to Florida with her friend.”

Ben’s chest flared with pain again, but this time it didn’t have anything to do with his injury. “Oh, really?”

April gave him a little smile. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be back soon. She just needed some time, you know. This was a traumatic experience for her.”

Ben cleared his throat. He didn’t want to show how disappointed he was, but he knew he was failing. “It’s good, that she went. She needs to put some distance between her and… and what happened. She needs to forget.”

April’s phone started ringing in her pocket, which Ben was grateful for, because he was sure she was about to say something he didn’t want to hear. She excused herself when she saw it was Andy calling, and got up to leave the room and have some privacy.

“Hey babe! Yes, he’s awake. Oh, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you!”

Ben shifted uncomfortably on the bed. He knew it was ridiculous of him to expect Leslie to want something with him now that it was all over. Why would Leslie want a constant reminder of all the bad things that had happened to her? Ben told himself that he needed to be grateful and relieved that Leslie was safe. That was, after all, what truly mattered.

\-------------------

Leslie kneeled on the grass and put the bouquet of wildflowers down in front of her father’s gravestone.

She felt bad. She hadn’t come back to visit him in too long. When he had died, both she and her mother considered moving her father to a cemetery in Indiana, but they knew it wasn’t about their own selfish wishes – it was about where her father belonged. Robert had lived his whole life in Florida, before meeting Marlene and before having Leslie. She knew how much it meant to him to be laid to rest here. It had always been home to him. It was only logical to let him stay here.

“We should come back more often,” Ann whispered softly, as she arranged her own bouquet in front of Robert’s grave.

“We should,” Leslie breathed as she took in the sight she had missed for so long. “We really should.”

They sat there in silence for a while. Leslie placed her hand on the granite, and slowly traced the letters of her dad’s name. It was cool to the touch and sent shivers down her spine. 

After a couple of minutes, Ann cleared her throat and stood up. Leslie watched her walk away towards a bench. Ann knew that Leslie always had a hard time here, and wanted her to have her time alone with Robert. It still seemed crazy to her that every time she wanted to visit her father, she had to come to a cemetery. It was unthinkable that she would never hear his voice or hug him again. It had been years since she had lost him, and still Leslie couldn’t get used to not having him in her life.

“I’m glad you didn’t have to worry your way through the past few weeks,” Leslie murmured softly. “It would have killed you to know what I was going through. But, at the same time, I never needed you this much, Dad. I would give anything to have you back.”

She thought back to her conversation with Ben out on the porch, about how sometimes it was nice to believe in something. She’d been wrong. She did believe in something.

She believed in Ben.

“You know, if you’re the one who sent Ben to take care of me, you did a great job, Dad,” Leslie laughed as a few tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them away. “A guardian angel with a gun.”

The sound of the gunshot resounded in her head for the millionth time since she had pulled the trigger. She closed her eyes, still nauseated by the image, by the thought of what she had done. She had done the right thing, but the right thing came with consequences.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever forget what I did, if I’ll accept it and move on…” Leslie said, running her fingers over the flower petals delicately. “But he saved my life and I saved his. I have to believe that sometimes doing something horrible is exactly the right thing to do.”

She looked over her shoulder. Ann was still sitting on the bench, waiting for her.

“I love you, Dad. Please never forget that. And thank you again for sending me Ben. He’s it for me. But I think you knew that before I did, didn’t you?”

Leslie stayed there for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to pretend she could feel her father’s arms around her. But she could only feel the soft breeze that barely shook the trees’ branches, and when she opened her eyes, she was still kneeling in front of a gravestone.

“Goodbye, Dad. I love you, and I’ll see you next time.”

She heard steps behind her.

“Ready to go?” Ann asked.

Leslie traced her fingers across the letters on the gravestone one last time with careful fingers. _Robert Leslie Knope_. “I’m ready.”

They walked out of the cemetery side by side. Leslie wondered if maybe the next time she came to visit him, Ben would be with her.

Ann threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer as they walked. Leslie gladly accepted the comfort, and leaned closer.

“I’m really glad you’re my best friend, Ann,” Leslie said, because she knew she didn’t say it often enough.

She could see Ann’s crooked smile from the corner of her eye. “And I’m really glad you’re mine, Leslie.”

That night, after dinner, Ann and Leslie sat outside in the backyard, and Leslie told Ann everything about the past few weeks. She described the ranch, the animals, the boredom and the desperation, the isolation and the fear that something might happen to Ann. She told her about Pedro, about his kindness, about his life working at the ranch and raising a beautiful family. She told her about using her time away to start working on her campaign, about how she truly believed she could run and make it happen someday. She told her about Ben, about his silences, his losses, his kindness. She told her about falling in love with him so gradually, like it was so natural and logical, like it couldn’t have ended any other way.

She told her she killed Vincent Hart.

With shaking hands, Leslie told Ann about the sheer terror she had felt when the killer drove the knife into Ben’s chest, when she saw Ben’s blood spilling down her shirt. She recalled seeing the gun on the grass, not thinking at all, just knowing she had to do something. Her finger was on the trigger before she even realized what she was about to do, before she could even think of how she had never even held a gun before – what if she shot Ben instead? – and then she just did it. She shot him.

“I didn’t even think of what that meant until we got to the hospital a while later and they took Ben away from me,” Leslie said. “When I finally had time to think… I just – I killed someone, Ann.”

“I’m glad you did,” Ann murmured in a low voice. Leslie turned abruptly to look at her, not expecting that answer. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but I’m glad you reacted that way. Leslie, this man would have killed both you and Ben without a second of hesitation. You did what you had to do, both for you and for Ben. I understand that you will have to live with this now, for the rest of your life… but I can’t tell you I’m not glad you did it, because you had the guts to do what it took to survive. And fuck, Leslie, I’m just happy and relieved that you’re okay.”

Leslie sighed. “I know. I know you’re right. It was self defense. But I still – I have nightmares. I hear the gunshot in my head. I see his blood spreading on the grass. It’s not pleasant. But yeah… I – it was Ben’s life or his. It was my life or his.”

They didn’t say anything for a few seconds, processing her admission. Leslie was tired, so tired. It felt like she hadn’t slept in years. But she also dreaded going to bed. She didn’t want to close her eyes and see it all over again.

“So what are you going to do now?” Ann asked at last.

Leslie had actually had time to think about that. “I want to find a new house. I don’t think I can go back to my old one. Hart was there, his horrible creepy heart must still be painted over my bed and I don’t want to have to live somewhere that doesn’t make me feel safe anymore.”

“You can stay with me while you look for a new place,” Ann immediately offered. “I have that extra room, and I think it’d be nice for you to have some company for a while, if you’d like that.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Sure. If you have trouble sleeping, we can stay up and eat ice cream and watch bad reality television,” Ann shrugged, and Leslie smiled at her. “I’ll help you find a house where you’ll feel comfortable. But in the meantime… just stay with me.”

“Okay, one less thing to worry about,” Leslie replied. “Thanks, Ann.”

“No problem,” Ann smiled. “What else?”

“Um, well… I need to go back to work,” Leslie said, checking her mental to-do list. “It’ll take a while to figure out what I want to do about my campaign, and I need to work in the meantime. I think I should just stay where I am for awhile, if they’ll have me after missing so many days.”

“I’m pretty sure Captain Swanson sent someone over to City Hall to explain your situation once you and Ben left for Minnesota,” Ann explained. “So that should be okay.”

“Oh, that’s great. I didn’t know,” Leslie sighed in relief. She had been away for weeks, and she had no idea how much of her life was still waiting for her to return. That had been one of the most terrifying aspects of her sudden escape to Minnesota – what if her own life couldn’t wait for her?

Ann cleared her throat and purposefully avoided looking Leslie in the eyes. “Anything else?”

Ann wasn’t subtle. She had never been subtle. Leslie knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Well, hopefully once Ben is out of the hospital – ”

“Yes! That’s what I wanted to hear!” Ann exclaimed, fist bumping the air.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Leslie protested, rolling her eyes.

“You’re in love with him, Les. You should have told him before we came here,” Ann retorted. “We’ll develop some sort of dating-system-code thing once we’re back in Indiana.”

“Why? Are you expecting to date anyone any time soon?” Leslie asked. She could be just as obvious and obnoxious as her best friend if she wanted to.

Ann was suddenly very interested in her own shoes. “Well, now that you mention it – ”

“Agent Traeger, huh?” Leslie said, and Ann gasped in shock.

“How did you know?”

“Ann, anyone could see how much you like him. And I’m pretty sure he likes you too.”

Ann seemed truly surprised that she hadn’t been incredibly mysterious and enigmatic.

They stayed out there in the backyard a little while longer, lost in thought. Both had a lot to think about. It was a beautiful night to figure things out; the sky was clear, the stars sparkled beautifully, and suddenly their whole lives seemed to expand before them. There were no threats, no reasons to be afraid, nothing to escape from. They just had to move on and move forward.

At last, Ann patted her knee and stood up. “I’m going to bed. Let me know if you need anything?”

“Sure, thanks, Ann,” Leslie smiled up at her and watched her walk into the house. Without her there, the silence seemed to grow wider.

Leslie toyed with her cellphone. It had been returned to her at the bureau. Before all of this happened, she was rarely without it, but at the ranch, it had become less and less necessary with each passing day. The only person she would have liked to call while she was there was Ann. The only person she wanted to talk to now was the last number she had called before she had to leave Indiana.

It was saved under Agent Wyatt.

Leslie took a deep breath and made the call.

\-------------------

Ben was dozing off. It had been a very long day. April and Andy had stayed with him until a few minutes ago, when he had kicked them out and told them to go home. Andy had brought a picnic basket, complaining that hospital food wouldn’t help Ben recover and that April always forgot to eat when she was under stress. He had watched them bicker all afternoon: Andy kept going on and on about how April shouldn’t have been carrying heavy things, and April crossed her arms over her chest in irritation and reminded her husband that she was pregnant, but that she wasn’t useless.

It had given Ben a headache.

Ron, Jerry, and some other people from the bureau had stopped by to see how he was doing. Chris had stayed for a couple of hours, fluffing his pillow and reading magazines aloud to him, until he politely asked him to stop because he didn’t care about what the newest superfood was. His mother had called, and he had to assure her over and over again that he would be okay, that she didn’t need to get on a plane to see him. Doctors and nurses had come and gone all day long, and Ben was suddenly sick of talking to people, of answering questions, of being the center of attention.

He just wanted to sleep.

He was on the verge of consciousness when his phone began to buzz insistently. With a groan, he reached for it on the bedside table. He blinked at the unknown number and considered not answering, but he worried it might be important.

“Hello?”

“Oh!” The voice on the other end exclaimed. He recognized it immediately. “Oh, fuck, you were sleeping. I’m so sorry – ”

“Leslie,” Ben murmured, and he was suddenly awake, so awake.

“Hi. I’m sorry to call now, it’s just…” Leslie paused, and Ben didn’t say anything, just content with hearing her soft breaths on the other end. “I wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“I’m better, really, don’t worry about me,” Ben answered. His head felt heavy with all the questions he wanted to ask her.

“Are you in any pain?” Leslie asked, sounding truly concerned.

“Only a little, but they have some amazing things here called painkillers,” Ben said, causing Leslie to chuckle softly. “How are you, Leslie? April filled me in on what happened. I don’t remember much.”

“I feel a little weird, to be honest. I have a lot to think about, but… I think I’ll be fine,” Leslie explained. “I’m actually in Florida. I… well, Ann and I came to visit my dad.”

Ben understood now. Leslie had gone home, not to get away from him, but because she was looking for the kind of comfort that she could only find there. She was not running away. “I know. April said you called. How’s Ann?”

“She’s fine, glad I’m back. It’s been nice to sit down and talk to her. I really needed my best friend,” Leslie said, and then she took a deep breath, as if bracing herself for something. “I miss you like crazy though.”

Ben’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. He was afraid his monitor would go off and alert the nurses. “I miss you too. Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“Just a couple more days. We both have a lot of things to do in Indiana, but we needed to escape for a little while,” Leslie replied. “I’m sorry I’m not there. I should be there… I didn’t think when we took off, but I – ”

“Leslie, please, don’t feel bad. Just promise you’ll come see me the second you come back and we’ll be fine,” Ben teased, secretly hoping Leslie would comply.

“Deal.”

They both paused. The silent was suddenly charged with all the things they wanted to say, but that neither wanted to say over the phone. Ben felt as if electricity was coursing through him. He wanted to get out of bed and run around the hospital to burn all the energy that unexpectedly filled him.

“Leslie?”

“Yeah?” Leslie sounded breathless.

“Thank you for saving my life,” Ben said, and his words sounded raw – he was bearing his soul for Leslie to see, and hoping Leslie would want him, no matter what.

“Thank you for saving mine.”

God, Ben wished Florida wasn’t so far away.

“I’ll see you soon?” Ben asked, because he needed the confirmation. He needed to know that soon he would be able to put his arms around Leslie, to feel her heart beating against his own.

“Soon,” Leslie said it like a promise.

Ben fell asleep to the sound of Leslie’s breathing and his heart full of hope.


	13. Chapter 13

The day Leslie arrived back in Indiana, it was pouring with rain.

She and Ann hadn’t even thought of grabbing an umbrella, and they both hurried from the train station, hoping to catch a cab before they were drenched. It took her a couple of minutes, but soon enough they were both in the backseat, looking out the window at the city veiled by the thunder.

It hadn’t been even a week since they had left, but it was always too long without Indiana.

Florida had been a welcome break. Leslie felt rested and at peace after their trip. Not everything was fixed – she still couldn’t erase what had happened, what she had done – but she felt more ready to face it now. She felt like she would be okay.

She had called City Hall the previous day, and they expected her to return to work. Leslie hadn’t expected them to be so incredibly understanding and kind – she was, after all, just a Parks and Recreation employee, and was easily replaceable. But she was happy to know she still had a job. She was happy to know her life hadn’t completely collapsed while a nightmare chased her.

The taxi stopped in front of Ann’s home, who fished some money out of her pocket and handed it to the driver. She grabbed her bag and opened the door, turning back to look at Leslie when she didn’t move.

There was something she really, really needed to do.

“Aren’t you coming?” 

Leslie glanced at her. She pushed her own bag towards Ann so she would take it into the house as well. Ann’s face lit up in understanding, and she winked at Leslie, before closing the car door and rushing into the building, once again trying to avoid the rain.

Leslie turned to the driver, and told him a new address. The man pulled back into traffic and headed towards the hospital.

Above everything else, Leslie needed to see Ben.

\-------------------

Ben’s hospital room was crowded. Between his friends fussing over him, the doctors and nurses coming and going, and the ridiculous amount of balloons with get well messages that Andy had sent him, he could barely move two steps without bumping into someone or something.

It was driving him insane.

Luckily, it was his last few hours there. He would be free to go home soon, and he couldn’t wait to walk out the hospital’s doors without looking back.

On the other hand, April had clearly intimidated half the hospital staff, because they were suddenly eager to run one last round of tests on him before letting him go. He’d had x–rays and a CT scan earlier, and now he was about to head to another session of physical therapy for his arm. He was sure he would regain full use of it in just one or two more weeks, but apparently he wasn’t allowed to complain. April had glared at him as soon as he opened his mouth to say he was fine.

Jerry and Chris were sitting on either side of him. They were happy to be there and share news from the bureau, which Ben appreciated because he hated being away from work. However, he wished they would both vanish as soon as the door was cracked open with a shy little knock, and Leslie peered into the room.

Ben sat up so quickly he bumped his head into a big blue balloon.

“Leslie!” He exclaimed. He was so relieved to see her. Despite their conversation over the phone, Ben hadn’t been able to convince himself that Leslie would come back.

“Hi,” she said, stepping inside, but looking around as if she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to be there or not. “Um... I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m so glad to see you,” Ben looked at both Jerry and Chris pointedly, but they didn’t seem to catch the hint, because they remained where they were, happily and obnoxiously clueless. “Um. How was… how was Florida?”

Chris perked up at that. “Oh, April mentioned you and Ann went on a little trip. How is she doing?”

Leslie blinked at him for a moment. She seemed so unsure and out of place standing there in the middle of the room, like she was wondering if she made the right decision coming here. “She’s fine. We both needed the time away, but… we’re happy to be back,” she said this last part looking right into Ben’s eyes.

Ben felt himself melting. They were right on the edge of something so special, and Ben just wanted to take the damn leap.

“Please say hi to her from me,” Chris continued, perking up with a large smile.

“I will,” Leslie said. Then there was silence and she just stood there awkwardly. “Um. Maybe I should – ”

“Please don’t go,” Ben blurted out before he could stop himself. He cleared his throat as all the eyes in the room settled on him. “I’d love to talk to you if… guys, do you mind?” He said, done with being polite and subtle.

Chris practically jumped from his chair, and Jerry followed. “We’ll be outside!”

Ben waited until he heard the door clicking shut after them. He sighed in relief. “God. I love those two, but they can be so – ” He noticed Leslie was still standing in the same spot, too far away for his taste. “Hey. Come here.”

Leslie hesitantly made her way to the chair Chris had vacated. “Nice balloons. Looks like a clown vomited in here.”

Ben chuckled. “They were a gift from Andy, April’s husband. He has a very… colorful taste.”

They both looked around the room, as if focusing on the balloons could strop the growing tension between them from snapping. It wasn’t a bad kind of tension, Ben realized. It was the kind they had shared back at the ranch, on a similarly rainy day.

It was the best kind of tension.

“Leslie – ”

“Ben, I – ”

They both shut their mouths abruptly. Ben grinned at her, Leslie blushing as she ducked her head.

“This is silly,” Ben commented. “We’re both adults, not school children. There’s no need to be so awkward and bashful after everything that has happened.”

Leslie sighed, apparently relieved. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just been… well, a few very weird days.”

“I can imagine,” Ben muttered, his voice going softer. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, Leslie. You didn’t deserve it.”

“No, I didn’t,” Leslie agreed simply. “But it brought me to you.”

Ben’s breath stuttered in his chest. God, he loved her. How had he been so stupid to want to deny this? He could have had so many more nights in Leslie’s arms. Why hadn’t he allowed himself to feel this freely?

You can still have so many nights with her, a voice in his head said, and it sounded suspiciously like April’s.

_You can have the rest of your nights with her, if you stop being such an idiot._

“How are you feeling?” Leslie asked, before Ben could say something. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Ben assured her. “Trust me, this is not the worst injury I’ve got since I’ve joined the bureau. It was painful and ugly, but it’s fine now.”

Leslie nodded and then leaned closer, reaching for Ben’s hand. “I’m so happy you’re okay, Ben. For a moment there, I thought – ”

She couldn’t say it. Ben saw her swallow the words like they were poison, and he intertwined their fingers together, squeezing lightly to bring Leslie some semblance of reassurance.

“We’re both fine,” Ben said. “There’s no need to be afraid about it now. I know it was a terrible experience, Leslie, and that you will probably have some things to think about and to figure out after this, but… I was hoping that we both got something better than just a bad experience and a closed case.”

Leslie blinked at him, her big blue eyes so mesmerizing that Ben couldn’t look away from them. “Oh?” She muttered, her gaze searching for the answer on Ben’s face.

“I was hoping that… we got each other out of all of this,” Ben replied, leaning towards her. “Leslie, I – ”

There was a loud knock on the door, and a nurse came in, with a bright smile on her face and carrying a clipboard. “Mr. Wyatt! Time for your physical therapy!” She stopped when she realized Ben wasn’t alone. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a visitor.”

Leslie squeezed his hand gently before letting go. “It’s okay.”

“Would you wait for me?” Ben asked, hating the interruption. He just wanted to know that everything between them was fine. “It should take about an hour – ”

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Leslie said, and she looked genuinely upset about not being able to stay. “They’re expecting me at City Hall, and after missing so many days, I can’t be late. But I can come back later? After work?”

“Oh, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be here. Apparently, I get to go home today, so – ”

“Only if he does well in physical therapy!” The nurse exclaimed, and she looked way too chipper for Ben’s taste. God, he hated hospitals. “Come on, Mr. Wyatt. You don’t want to be late!”

Ben was about to apologize to Leslie, but Leslie simply put a hand on his good shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out, right?”

Ben smiled softly at her. That sounded positive enough. “Right.”

Leslie hesitated for only a second before she leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Ben’s cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

The touch of Leslie’s lips seemed to travel through Ben’s skin, all the way to his heart. He watched her walk out of the room, wishing he could go after her, wrap her in his arms and kiss her like he truly wanted to.

They would most certainly figure it out.

\-------------------

There were two things that Ben knew soon after he was back home, free of nurses and doctors, balloons and endless visitors.

One, he was going to go crazy with nothing to do. He wasn’t made to be sitting at home recovering, staring mindlessly at the television and wasting precious hours he could be using for something else.

Two, he wanted to do something nice for Leslie.

They had shared a few texts, mostly Leslie wanting updates on how Ben was doing and asking if he’d made it home safely, but neither had made an attempt to ask the other out or make plans to see each other again. Leslie seemed wary regarding Ben’s health, and Ben knew Leslie was now on a very tight schedule with work and starting a campaign. Somehow, it looked like the universe suddenly didn’t want them to meet again.

Screw the universe, Ben thought. They were going to work it out somehow.

On the second day back home from the hospital, he got out of bed in the morning, showered and got dressed. He left his place and stopped at his favorite coffee shop on the way to the bureau. After weeks of his life being absolutely altered, his day was normal. His life was back on track. Everything was fine.

It would soon be perfect.

He ran into Chris at the elevator once he arrived at the bureau. He looked at Ben with wide eyes and hugged him tightly.

“What are you doing here? Captain Swanson is going to kill you,” Chris said, but he seemed happy to see him nonetheless. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, and please stop asking me that. It’s all people ask me lately,” he said, but he was smiling. He was touched that so many people cared for him. He had made a real family at the FBI, and he loved them, no matter how dysfunctional they could all be. “I just couldn’t sit idly at home anymore. I was going insane.”

“It’s been two days,” Chris replied teasingly, but the grin on his face told Ben he knew exactly what he was talking about. Chris had broken his leg on a case two years ago, and had been as desperate to go back to work as he was. He had actually showed up at the bureau the day after the accident, his leg in a full cast, and it had taken a threat from Ron that he would be fired if he didn’t follow the order to just go home to take his leave.

They walked together into the office and Ben was immediately swarmed with people patting his back and welcoming him back, telling him how happy they were that he was okay and congratulating him on another closed case. Ben was happy to see them as well, and eager to catch up on everything that had been happening here in his absence.

Once the group around him finally cleared, he discovered April, tapping her foot impatiently against the floor and watching him with an arched eyebrow, her arms crossed.

“What do you think you are doing?” She asked him severely.

“Relax,” Ben said. “I’m not here to beg for a new case and get back out there. I just want to talk to Ron.”

“There’s a thing called phone,” April replied tersely. “You could have used that, and stayed home in your pajamas at the same time. It’s incredible what technology can do these days.”

“Stop being so sarcastic, and admit you’d be doing the same if you were in my shoes,” Ben said, as he started making his way to Ron’ office, followed closely by April. “We’re all work junkies here. No one gets to judge me.”

April huffed, which meant she didn’t want to admit Ben was right. “Cap will be happy to see you, anyway.”

Ron was happy to see him, though he phrased the exact same question everyone had welcomed him with: “What are you doing here?”

“I’m starting to think no one’s actually happy to see me,” Ben said with a smile, as he ushered him to a seat as if he was too weak to be standing for too long. “I just wanted to come talk to you.”

“I’m going to put it bluntly, Ben,” he said, as he took his own seat behind his desk. He leaned over it to look Ben in the eyes. “There’s no way in hell you’re coming back to work so soon. You deserve a vacation, and a real one this time. No undercover jobs, no protecting witnesses, no getting you out of the office just to make you work elsewhere. You need this.”

What Ben said next shocked him. “That actually sounds perfect.”

Ron blinked at him as if he wasn’t sure he understood. “You do know what vacation means, right?”

Ben chuckled. “Cap, I’m actually looking forward to it. I have plans.”

He sighed in relief. “I was afraid I would have to force you to take time off. Can I ask what brought this change of mind?”

Ben looked down at his own hands for a second. Ron had never seen him look so bashful before. Or peaceful. There was something peaceful about him, like he hadn’t been since before his father and Henry had died. Something in Ben had shifted, and he couldn’t put his finger on it–

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m in love.”

Oh, so that’s what it was.

“And I want to make sure I won’t get in trouble because of it, because I know how you feel about us mixing our personal lives and our work lives, but – ”

“It’s Leslie Knope, isn’t it?” Ron interrupted, and Ben blinked at him in confusion.

“How did you know?” 

Ron stood up and went to his side table to pour some whiskey for both of them. He placed a glass in front of Ben. “Ben, I’m not stupid. And I’m not blind. I could see it on both your and Knope’s faces as soon as you were back from Minnesota. I don’t know what happened while you two were there, but it’s not very hard to guess it.”

Ben looked into his glass of whiskey. “My job here means the world to me. I don’t want to jeopardize – ”

“The case is closed. She’s no longer your assignment. I see no reason why you two can’t have a relationship,” Ron shrugged. “Look, Ben. With anyone else, I would have probably frowned upon this matter, but the truth is that you’re the most professional guy I know. You wouldn’t risk your whole career just because you want to bang a witness.” Ben spluttered, almost spilling the alcohol all over himself. “Yes, I said bang.”

“That’s not what this is – ”

“Exactly, I know that.” Ron smiled at him. “You’ve had it rough, Ben. The past year has been incredibly rough on you. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t allow you to have this. I won’t be an obstacle. The bureau won’t be an obstacle.”

Ben put his glass down and stood up, throwing his arms around Ron, hugging him tightly. They were friends, even if they usually had to act like Ron was only his superior. Ben had truly lucked out with the wonderful family he had found here.

“Alright. Take a couple of weeks off, and go get that woman of yours,” Ron said, pushing him towards the exit.

“Yes, sir,” he saluted, with a laugh.

He was about to go do exactly that when there was a scream. He looked around, already completely alert, and realized the source of it had been April, who was standing on the middle of the first floor, phone to her ear, a bunch of files fallen at her feet like she had just dropped them.

“What the hell?”

Ben rushed to her, Ron following closely behind him.

“April, what’s wrong?” He asked, as she shoved her phone in her pocket. Her eyes were wide and frantic. Ben had never seen her like that before. “What’s going on?”

“My water just broke. The baby…” Her large, scared eyes focused on Ben. “The baby is coming.”

\-------------------

Ben hadn’t thought he would be back in the hospital again so soon. At least this time it was for a good reason.

All his life, he had believed giving birth took endless hours, screaming and drama. But for Andy and April, it was over in just a couple of hours.

Ben would never forget the look of utter amazement and joy on Andy’s face when he appeared in the waiting room after it was all over to inform him that the baby was fine and healthy, and April was the most wonderful woman he had ever had the pleasure of knowing, loving and cherishing.

“Would you like to meet him?” Andy asked as they pulled away from a congratulatory hug, wiping his tears with the back of his hand quickly.

Ben smiled at him. “I would love to.”

He guided her down the hallway. When they entered the room, the first thing he settled his eyes on was April, sitting against the headboard of a hospital bed, looking down at the small bundle in her arms. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face, and she looked tired, but Ben couldn’t remember seeing her smile so brightly before. Andy immediately went to her, sitting on the edge of the bed and throwing an arm around his wife’s shoulders, leaning in to watch their son.

“Hi, Ben,” April said, acknowledging him without taking her eyes away from the baby. “Come here. We have someone we want you to meet.”

“I’m a mother, Ben,” April said as he approached her, and Ben couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her so vulnerable, tears in her eyes, without even the slightest hint of teasing and sarcasm. This was April so purely happy, that nothing, not even the dark, mean world they knew they lived in, could taint it.

He hugged her, whispering his congratulations, filled with so much love and happiness for this woman who was, without a doubt, the most important person he’d had by his side in the past year, and beyond that. No one deserved this like April did. Very few people knew just how kind and selfless she could be, underneath that hard exterior she had the need to keep up at all times. Sometimes, Ben wondered if only he and Andy were allowed to see past it. He felt so blessed to be able to truly and thoroughly know her.

He peeked into the blankets, finding the tiniest little hand, the cutest little nose, and the most adorable creature he could have ever imagined. The baby was all April.

“Wow, he’s amazing, guys. Congratulations,” Ben said, reaching carefully for his little hand and watching in awe as the tiny fingers wrapped around his own bigger one.

“Ben, we – ” April started. She cleared her throat, as if what she was about to say was hard for her. “We’ve decided to name him Henry.”

Ben looked up abruptly, shocked by her announcement.

“You…” He mumbled, not knowing what to say.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Henry. I wouldn’t get to have this baby, this life, everything I love about it. I wouldn’t get to wake up next to him every single morning and know I’m the luckiest person in the whole world,” April said, and her voice was so thick, Ben had no doubts she was doing her best to hold back her tears. “Henry gave me the chance to have all of this, and I will never forget him. I will never not be grateful to him.”

Ben felt a lump in his own throat. He nodded slowly, just as April put the baby in his arms. His weight against his chest was warm and perfect, and he looked up at him with the biggest, clearest blue eyes he had ever seen.

He knew it wasn’t possible, but they still reminded him of his brother’s eyes.

“Henry Ludgate-Dwyer,” he muttered, leaning to place a soft kiss to the baby’s forehead. “I think it suits him.”

A few tears ran down his cheeks, and for the first time in a very long time, Ben didn’t bother wiping them away.

“Hi, little Henry,” he whispered, and he hadn’t called anyone that name in so long, it felt foreign, and yet so perfect in his lips. “It’s so, so very nice to meet you.”

April reached for Andy’s hand, and they watched the boys together. Right then, there was nothing else. There was no crime, no pain, no victims, no tragedies. Right then, the world was exactly the way it was supposed to be.

\-------------------

There was something very strange about being back in her old office. Leslie stood at the podium in the City Hall chambers, filled with adrenaline, and looked at herself, trying to find the same woman who had been here a handful of weeks ago, only caring about not being in the spotlight enough.

That woman had been turned to ashes. She had reborn like the phoenix.

The last couple of hours seemed to have gone by in a daze. Being back at City Hall, reciting her speech for her colleagues in preparation for a real campaign rally, sent a thrill down her spine.

City Hall was her home. It was nice to be back.

A few of her coworkers patted her on the back, saying for the millionth time how nice it was to have her here. Leslie smiled politely at them, thanked them for their words. It felt surreal. Not too long ago she had been struggling for her life, and now she was here, like she had never walked away from her everyday life.

The world didn’t stop while Leslie Knope’s whole life was shifted on its axis. It kept spinning, and now Leslie was thrust back into it, and she had to cope and learn how to fit back into something she had once known so well.

She sighed. Her thoughts the last few days had been scary and full of confusion. She had changed, but she still didn’t know what to do about that.

Her phone buzzed on the desk in front of her, and she grabbed it to find a text from Ann. Her best friend had been worried sick about her being out on the streets after the sun had set, and Leslie couldn’t blame her. Ann’s world had changed too.

Leslie texted her back to reassure her, let her know she was still at work but would leave in a few minutes. Ann replied almost immediately with a smiley face and said she looked forward to hearing how Leslie’s first day back had been.

Leslie smiled at her phone. No matter how much everything else changed, Ann was the best constant she would ever have.

After saying goodbye to her colleagues, Leslie grabbed her bag and walked down the hallway towards the exit. Once again, no one even noticed her slipping out the back door. She was not the reason they were here.

But she was here, and she was alive, and there was so much – so much – to be grateful for.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, as a campaign flyer appeared right in front of her face, making her stop. “Would you mind giving me your autograph? I thought you were the most mesmerizing, beautiful and talented person at City Hall.”

Leslie blinked in absolute confusion and looked up from the flyer to find Ben standing in front of her, his eyes warm and his lips curled in a grin.

“Ben!” She exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, we kept missing each other, what with your campaign kicking off and me leaving the hospital, so…” Ben shrugged. He was wearing a blue button down, the sleeves rolled up to his elbow, and jeans, his face freshly shaven, and his dark hair styled carefully. He looked absolutely breathtaking. “Here I am.”

“You…” Leslie looked back at the flyer and then at Ben once more. “You heard my speech?”

“Yes, and I wasn’t lying just now. You were amazing, Leslie,” Ben replied warmly, stepping closer to her as a group of people tried to pass by them on the sidewalk. Or maybe it was just an excuse to be closer. Leslie was fine with either option. “I knew you were talented, but… wow.”

Leslie felt herself blushing. “I’m just testing the waters. I may not even win.”

“It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t take my eyes off you,” Ben said, his hand going slowly towards Leslie’s face, giving her enough time to move away. Which, of course, was ridiculous. Leslie leaned her cheek into Ben’s touch, feeling invigorated by it.

“Ben…” Leslie murmured, moved by his words. “Thank you. I wish you would have told me you were coming.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Ben said, grin stretching even wider than before. “Did I succeed?”

God, Leslie loved him. With every fiber of her heart, she loved him. “Of course you did. I’m so happy you’re here.”

“I was hoping you would like to have dinner with me?” Ben said tentatively. “I mean, I truly couldn’t take my eyes off you, so I need you to explain what exactly you said in your speech and what it was actually about.”

Leslie’s laughter burst out of her unexpectedly. It took her a few seconds to realize it was the first time she laughed since coming back from Minnesota. Being with Ben just made her so happy.

“Well, since it was my fault you couldn’t focus on the speech…” Leslie teased, rolling her eyes. “What did you have in mind?”

Ben extended his arm towards her, like the gentleman he was. Leslie took it without a second’s hesitation, and they strolled down the Indiana sidewalks, heading to a restaurant Ben suggested.

“Can I ask how you’re feeling or are you going to chew my head off for it?” Leslie asked, nudging him playfully with her shoulder.

Ben chuckled under his breath. “I’m fine, I promise.”

“Fine enough to be out and about and go back to work and all that?” Leslie said, as they paused at a corner to wait for a red light.

“Yes,” Ben answered. “Though I’m actually taking a few days off work.”

Leslie frowned. It didn’t sound like Ben to take time off. “You are?”

Ben turned to face her fully. The traffic stopped as the light turned red, but they ignored it for a moment. “I need the time off. And I was hoping I would get to spend a lot of time with you. I didn’t want distractions like work to interfere.”

Leslie placed her hands on Ben’s chest, fingers grabbing at his shirt a little desperately. “God, Agent Wyatt, you really do know how to make a woman swoon.”

Ben grinned, and his smile could have powered all of Indiana, it was so bright. Leslie loved that smile. She loved everything about this man.

Ben’s eyes flickered down to Leslie’s lips. Leslie held her breath in expectation, but Ben didn’t move forward. “Leslie… would it be okay if I – ”

“Please, just kiss me already,” Leslie practically whimpered, and Ben didn’t need to hear another word.

He surged forward, capturing Leslie’s lips in an ardent kiss, one of his hands moving up Leslie’s side until he was cupping her jaw, his thumb pressing slightly as if guiding Leslie to part her lips a little more. Leslie happily granted access, and Ben’s tongue teased her own. The fire that had been lit in Minnesota returned full force, and for a moment, Leslie was scared they would burn Pawnee down with the intensity of it.

They only parted when it became hard to breathe. Leslie leaned her forehead against Ben, panting with her eyes closed, and willing her heart to stop trying to break through her ribcage. Ben’s hand remained on her cheek, his thumb now caressing her cheekbone, so very softly that it sent shivers down Leslie’s spine.

“I missed you,” Ben mumbled quietly, his words almost swallowed by the sounds of the city around them.

“I missed you too,” Leslie said, moving in to place the softest of kisses to Ben’s jaw.

Ben sighed in content. “I could stay right here and just kiss you for the rest of my days.”

Leslie laughed – again; the second time in just a handful of minutes, and only Ben could have that effect on her right now. “That sounds like a perfect idea, but I’m starving.” Leslie forced herself to pull away just enough to look at Ben. “Maybe we can go kiss somewhere where there’s food?”

Ben’s hand found hers. He tangled their fingers together and then pressed a kiss to their joint knuckles. “Let’s go.”

They arrived at the Italian restaurant Ben had suggested a few minutes later, and as they waited for their waitress to bring the menus, Leslie pulled out her phone to let Ann know she wasn’t going home yet, after all.

“She worries,” Leslie said, apologetically, as she put her phone away and returned all her attention to Ben.

“Understandable,” Ben nodded kindly. “How is Ann doing?”

“She’s great. She’s happy everything’s over, and she’s been over the moon since Chris accepted going out with her,” Leslie leaned over the table a little bit, as if she couldn’t resist being even a few inches closer to Ben. “I guess this duo is very popular with you FBI peeps.”

Ben chuckled. “Can you blame us?”

Leslie hummed. “I guess not.”

Once they had ordered, Ben’s hand found Leslie’s on the tabletop, and it just felt so natural, like they had been holding hands forever. Like their hands were meant to hold each other.

“Have you heard from Pedro? I’ve been worried about him since he went back to Minnesota. I asked at the bureau while you were still at the hospital, but no one could tell me anything,” Leslie said. She had grown so fond of the old man. She hoped he was okay.

“He’s happy to be home. I talked to him this morning, and tried convincing him to take a few weeks off, go somewhere with his children, but he doesn’t want to leave the ranch. He says it’s his home and he doesn’t need a break from it,” Ben explained, shaking his head with a loving look on his face. “But one of his sons is staying with him for now, just to make sure he’s fine.”

Leslie nodded, looking down at their hands. She didn’t want to think about what had happened in the ranch, but it wasn’t something she could just turn off like a light. Memories came back to her in flashes, and she knew Ben could tell by the look on her face.

“How have you been?” He asked, squeezing Leslie’s hand in comfort. “For real.”

“For real?” Leslie repeated, and she suddenly felt very tired. “I found a therapist, and I have my first appointment in two days. I think I – I really need to learn to live with what I did.”

“That sounds very reasonable, Leslie. I’m glad you decided to do this,” Ben said reassuringly. “And I hope you know how brave you are.”

Leslie smiled at him faintly. “I guess I’m a little braver than I thought I was.”

Ben leaned over the table and kissed her, just a quick but perfect peck on the lips. “My hero.”

Leslie blushed, and their food arrived before she could even think of something to say to that.

They drifted towards lighter topics as they ate. Leslie mentioned she was living with Ann and looking for a new home, and Ben laughed at the horror stories she told about the houses she had found online (“Seriously, Ben, if they are going to post pictures online, the least they could do is make sure the cockroaches aren’t the main focus.”). Ben told her about April and Andy’s new son, and how they had chosen his name (“I swear, Leslie, I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest when they told me. Henry would have loved this so much.”). They shared their food, feeding each other bites of ravioli and calzones and tiramisu like the corniest of couples, and they talked about their favorite restaurants in the city (“Fuck, we have to go to Malnati’s. Their roasted salmon is to die for.”).

By the time their waitress brought them their check – which they argued over until Ben shyly suggested that Leslie could pay for their next date – it felt as if they had been together for a lifetime. It felt as if making plans to go out to eat, and even suggesting going on a weekend getaway was just what you do after one date.

But they weren’t a regular couple sitting down together for their first time after their friends had set them up on a blind date. They had met in the most awful circumstances, and they had learned the hard way that there was no time to waste. When something felt right, you had to hold onto it. You didn’t know when it could be taken away from you.

They stepped out of the restaurant hand in hand and stood in the sidewalk for a moment, both hesitating. Neither wanted to say goodbye.

“Would like to, um… walk me home?” Leslie suggested, even though it wasn’t what she wanted. But she didn’t want to part ways right here and now.

Ben turned to her, brushed some of Leslie’s hair with his fingers, placing it behind her ear. His eyes were wide and bright, and Leslie hated being a cliché, but she truly felt like she could fall into them. “Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask if you want to come home with me? I just don’t want to say goodbye yet.”

Leslie kissed him. It was the only way to express her relief at Ben’s words. She kissed him thoroughly, pressing their bodies together, and Ben understood. It wasn’t presumptuous at all.

They hailed a cab. During the ride to his house, which felt endless, they held hands, and Leslie once again texted Ann to ease her best friend’s mind and tell her she wasn’t coming home tonight. She would have to put up with Ann’s teasing the next day, but it would be so, so worth it.

Leslie stood behind Ben as he fished the keys out of his pocket once they had arrived. She looked up at Ben’s home, and felt the bubbling of anticipation in her stomach. As Ben placed the key in the lock, Leslie took a deep breath and made a decision.

“Wait,” she said quickly, and Ben turned to look at her, eyebrows up to his hairline. “I – before we go inside – ”

“Leslie?” Ben asked, stepping closer to her, tilting his head curiously, a hint of concern in his eyes.

“There’s something I should tell you,” Leslie said, taking a deep breath. “There’s something you should know. Before I go inside with you.”

“Okay?” Ben muttered, and he looked thoroughly confused now.

“I love you,” Leslie said simply. Ben’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you. Or maybe the second time I saw you, since I was pretty traumatized when you interrogated me that first night.” She laughed, mostly out of nerves, twisting her hands together. “What I mean is… I don’t want to come in if this is going to be a one night only thing. I’m… here for so much more than that.”

Ben inhaled sharply. He took one more step towards her and cupped her face in his hands. “Oh, you silly, silly girl.”

Leslie blinked at him. That was not the answer she had hoped for. “I… what?”

“If you haven’t figured out that I’m head over heels for you and that I’m here for so much more than just one night too, then I’m either doing something very wrong here, or you’re just so, so blind,” Ben retorted, grinning at her.

“Head over heels, huh?” Leslie repeated, as she felt her cheeks burning at Ben’s words.

“I thought I was being horribly obvious,” Ben bit his bottom lip, clearly amused. “I don’t make a habit of sleeping with the witnesses under my protection.”

Leslie covered her eyes with her hand and laughed. She was being ridiculous. “God, I’m sorry, I just – ”

“Leslie?” Ben whispered, carefully removing Leslie’s hand from her face. When Leslie’s blue eyes were fixed on him, Ben added: “I love you.”

A slow, happy, delighted smile bloomed on Leslie’s lips. She pressed a quick, chaste kiss against Ben’s mouth, and then rubbed their noses together, in a tender and playful way. “Then let’s go inside.”

Ben opened the door and felt on the wall for the light switch. Leslie stepped into a warm living room, simply yet nicely decorated, with a large black leather couch, a flat screen TV and bookcases filled to the brim with books and picture frames. The style reminded her a bit of the ranch, although more lived in, less country-like.

Leslie grabbed a picture from the shelf. It showed five smiling faces: Ben, Henry, their sister and their parents, when the children were teenagers, during a fishing trip. They looked like a happy, loving family. “I love how long your hair was here.”

“Oh, shush it. It was a bird’s nest,” Ben laughed. “Trust me, you don’t want to see me with my hair that long.”

Leslie was still studying the picture when Ben joined her, offering her a glass of wine, and taking a sip from his own. His free hand found its way to Leslie’s waist, and simply rested there as if it was second nature to him.

“Henry was so handsome,” Leslie said softly.

“He was,” Ben nodded. “I was always a little jealous of him for that. People were always so welcoming to him, so open. I didn’t have it as easy. It was stupid of me, I know. He was an amazing brother, even if he sometimes believed the world spun around him.”

Leslie pressed a kiss to his cheek and then put the picture back on the shelf. She was tempted to ask more questions about Ben’s family, about his relationship with Henry, about that fishing trip, but she didn’t want Ben to feel sad. Not now.

they had the rest of their lives to talk about that. And about so much more.

She turned around in Ben’s grasp, so they could be face to face. Ben was beautiful. She wasn’t sure if she thought of him like that before: hot, yes; attractive, always; beautiful? Yes, he was the most beautiful man Leslie had ever seen, but not only because of his eyes, his strong body, or the shape of his tantalizing mouth. He was beautiful because he had a beautiful soul.

And for some amazing, fortunate reason… he was in love with Leslie.

How had her nightmare morphed into such an idyllic dream?

Leslie took a sip of wine to try and calm her racing heart. It tasted bitter and strong on her tongue, its texture almost as silky as Ben’s kisses.

“Would you like a tour?” Ben asked into her ear, and oh, when had he stepped so close to her? They were pressed together as if they were in the middle of the most intimate dance, but they weren’t moving at all.

“Is that just an excuse to take me to your bedroom?” Leslie asked, nuzzling Ben’s hairline.

She could feel Ben’s chest vibrate as he laughed, they were so close. “Leslie Knope, you’re too smart for your own good.”

“Or maybe you just haven’t realized you don’t really need an excuse to take me to your bedroom,” Leslie practically purred into his ear, and oh, maybe the wine had gone to her head already.

Ben took her hand, and slowly guided her farther into the house, down the hallway, up the stairs. Leslie barely had time to take a look around before Ben was crossing the door into his bedroom.

His bed had a navy blue duvet and was carefully made, with a couple of fluffy decorative pillows in matching tones. Leslie was about to comment on the vintage side tables, when Ben wrapped his arm around her waist and made her turn to face him.

“Leslie, I – I hope you know – ” Ben murmured, looking into her eyes intensely.

Leslie smiled at him encouragingly. “What is it?”

“I know what I do for a living can be scary. I know maybe you had enough of scary situations for the rest of your life, and that being with an FBI agent could be deadly. I mean, we die. And when we die, it’s – ” Ben said, but Leslie interrupted him before he could look even more worried.

“Ben,” she said sweetly. “I’ve known since the start exactly who you are and what you do. And I’m not going to lie, it is scary as hell. But… what kind of person would I be if I decided not to be with the man I love only because of what he does for a living? What kind of woman would I be if I didn’t take advantage of every precious day I can spend with you when I know how it all can be over in a second?”

Ben relaxed in her arms. “Are you sure? Because my schedule is crazy, and ending up in the hospital isn’t actually that unusual, and – ”

“ _Ben_ ,” Leslie interrupted again, this time with a roll of her eyes. “Shut up, put that wine glass down, and just kiss me already, okay?”

With a chuckle, Ben did what he was told. “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, before he captured Leslie’s lips in a desperate kiss.

Leslie would never forget how gentle Ben was as he used his fingers to open Leslie’s body, or the dark look in his eyes as he watched Leslie fuck herself down onto them, eager for more. She wouldn’t forget the spark of pleasure when Ben’s tongue made its way down her chest, to circle her belly button and further down, until his mouth was right where she wanted it, his cock wrapped in a velvety heat he couldn’t get enough of.

She would never forget the sounds that escaped Ben’s mouth as he pushed inside Leslie’s body, the trembling of his arms as he tried to hold himself up as not to crush her. She wouldn’t forget the fervent kisses, the ones she was too lost in pleasure to focus on, or the way he placed his forehead against Leslie’s and closed his eyes tightly, as if he couldn’t deal with everything he was feeling.

What they had shared back at the ranch had been wonderful. The way their bodies worked together… Leslie thought they had been made to move against each other, to rip pleasure from the deepest parts of them, to feed the fire that burned within them when they touched. But this… Leslie had never felt closer to another human being. This was more than sex. This was something that was beyond words.

When they were right on the edge of their orgasms, Ben reached for Leslie’s hands, intertwining their fingers together and pulling them up above Leslie’s head, bringing them impossibly closer. Their lips were pressed together, parted, as they panted and moaned into each other’s mouths. Leslie arched her back, her chest glued to Ben’s, and he spilled all over her stomach, Ben sent over the abysm as she clenched around him.

They held each other through it, whispering little nothings between one kiss and the next, an endless string of kisses that brought smiles to their faces, which were erased by one more kiss, and then one more smile, and then one more kiss. It was the most perfect cycle, and neither wanted it to end.

How was it possible that the most horrible thing Leslie had gone through in her entire life had also brought her the most amazing thing she had ever had?

Ben’s love had been so unexpected, and yet so welcomed, so needed. And it would be so, so cherished.

She buried her hands in Ben’s sweaty hair and brought him in for a sweet, deep kiss. As they parted, already falling asleep tangled under the covers, she whispered: “Goodnight, Agent Wyatt.”

Ben’s lips stretched into a smile, but he was too far gone to reply, and simply sunk into Leslie’s arms and closed his eyes.

The next morning, Ben woke up moaning. His hard cock was trapped between his body and the sheets, and there was a silky wet heat surrounding him. He moaned again, slowly slipping into consciousness, before looking up to see Leslie pulling away from him, cheeks flushed and lips cherry red.

Ben could have come from that sight alone.

“Leslie…” He whimpered, arching back and silently asking for more.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for a while,” Leslie said, voice thick with arousal. “Do you mind if I – ”

“God, please,” Ben moaned, burying the side his face in the pillow. “If I _ever_ say no to that, please shoot me with my own gun.”

He was relaxed, happy and ready to give himself away to this – to this feeling, to Leslie, to what they could build together. Life was, for once, exactly what it was supposed to be.

And if new challenges appeared, Ben was sure, without a single doubt, that they could face them together.

So he let himself sink into this moment. He closed his eyes and focused only on what Leslie was making him feel, on the weight of her body above him, the pulse of his cock deep within her, the gentleness of her fingers as she caressed across his skin.

On one of those caresses, Leslie’s fingers came upon the new scar on Ben’s shoulder. It was still fresh, and even though Ben wasn’t exactly in pain, it was sensitive. Leslie’s hips stuttered, hesitant, when Ben inhaled sharply at the touch.

“I’m sorry, I – ” 

“No, it’s fine,” Ben said, meeting her eyes with a smile. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Are you sure? I should have – should I have been more careful? Is any of this hurting you?” Leslie asked, peppering small kisses across the column of his neck.

Ben groaned. “The only thing that hurts me is that you stopped.”

Leslie chuckled, but her hips began moving again, and Ben arched into them, seeking more. “Just like this?”

Ben moaned, and as he shifted, he could feel Leslie even more fully, which he hadn’t though was possible. “God, yes. Oh Leslie, oh please, oh – ”

As his voice grew more and more desperate, Leslie’s pace also became faster. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Just tell me what you want.”

“Kiss me,” Ben muttered brokenly, and she did – a long and languid kiss that held every emotion, every feeling, the declaration of love.

It didn’t take long after that. Just a few more snaps of her hips and Ben was spilling inside of Leslie, all over the sheets, and the sounds he made and the way his cock pulsed and throbbed inside of Leslie, sent her over the edge as well. He stayed buried deep inside of her even after both of them had ridden their waves, like they couldn’t bear to be apart, like this was the only way to truly be close.

Once they had no choice but to pull away, they shifted until they could face each other, blue eyes looking into brown eyes, and whatever they were searching for, they seemed to find it, because they moved in for a soft, slow kiss.

“I love you,” Ben whispered, like it was a secret.

“I love you too,” Leslie replied, without missing a beat, like it was the only certainty left in the world, the only thing that couldn’t be questioned.

And Ben knew, without a single doubt, that this was the kind of happiness he wanted for himself. The kind of happiness that made the world stop around him. The kind of happiness that erased all wounds, all tears. The kind of happiness that made his heart beat steadily and with purpose. That was the happiness he was ready to chase.

It was very fortunate that Agent Wyatt had always been excellent at chasing.


End file.
